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ROGER BACON

in Life and Legend

ROGER
BACON

in Life and Legend

by

E. WESTACOTT

PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY NEW YORK

PUBLISHED 1953,

BY PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY, INC.,

15 EAST 40TH STREET NEW YORK 16, N.Y.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

BY HUNT, BARNARD AND CO, LTD

LONDON AND AYLSSBURY

CONTENTS

FOREWORD . . . . vii

INTRODUCTION . . . . ix

THIRTEENTH-CENTURY BACKGROUND . . xi

I The Life of Roger Bacon . . . , 13

II The Works of Roger Bacon . . * t 28

III Teachings as shown in his Works . . 37

IV Life at Oxford in the Time of Bacon . .51

V Philosopher and Scientist . . .60

VI Roger Bacon in Tradition and Legend . . 69

VII Some Aspects of the Opus majus . .78

VIII Why Roger Bacon became a Franciscan . 84

IX Student and Interpreter of the Scriptures . 89

X The Master Mind . . . .94

XI On Medicine . . . .98

XII An Estimate of his Philosophy . . 101

XIII InMemoriam . . . .104

XIV The Cipher of Roger Bacon . . .109
EPILOGUE 113

APPENDICES

I J. S. Brewer's Edition . . .115

II Notes on the Papacy . . . .118

III Life of Grosseteste . . . .120

IV Baconiana . . . . .124

V The Journey of William Rubruck . . 127

BIBLIOGRAPHY ..... 130

INDEX . . . . . .132

"Whither do we have to go to hear the real
truth about human life? To the old wives'
tales! There is the wisdom that is rooted
and grounded in experience! There is the
wisdom that is nursed in common sense, in
common sense and interpreting experience!"
John Cowper Powys, In Spite Of.

FOREWORD

HAVING been informed by a present day authority that
"There does not appear to be any book in English which can
be described as a 'Life of Roger Bacon' ", and that "Emile
Charles's Vie de Roger Bacon 1 has never been translated into
English", this work is an attempt to place before English
readers as much information as possible concerning this "old
English philosopher", the book being largely based on
Charles's great biography (particularly Chapters I III) from
which much knowledge has been obtained.

Since Charles claimed to have examined with care the
original MSS. existing in a more or less fragmentary state in
English and Continental libraries, no repetition of this
achievement has been made.

Indebtedness must be expressed to Dr. E. J. Dingwall,
M.A., D.Sc., Ph.D. for suggestions on certain lines of reading,
and to the authorities of Hitchin Public Library for obtaining
for me many books without which it would have been
impossible to undertake the necessary research.

Thanks are also due and acknowledged to all authors and
publishers of the works named in the Bibliography. Gratitude
and appreciation are here tendered to Miss Jessie Hill and to
Mrs. J. Smith for their kind and valuable assistance in the
dictating and checking of the manuscript. Thanks, and
appreciation are extended to the publishers for their interesjt
and helpfulness.

One of the nearest approaches to a Life is that section of
Lynn Thorndike's A History of Magic and Experimental

1 Roger Bacon: Sa vie, ses ouvrages, et ses doctrines d'apres Us textes
in edits by Emile Charles, Professor of Logic in the Lyceum of
Bordeaux. (Paris. Librairi^ de 1^. Hachette et die. Rue Pierre*
v 14, 1861.)

FOREWORD

Science devoted to Roger Bacon. These chapters by the
Professor of History in Western Reserve University represent
a standpoint on the subject which differs from those of other
biographers, this author maintaining that Bacon was much
more a child of his age than he is usually considered to have
been, that he was not persecuted by the Church and was
only one of a long series of writers who had interested them-
selves in magic, astrology and science. Among such was
Bacon's contemporary, Albertus Magnus, to whom Thorn -
dike ascribes the Speculum Astronomiae, herein differing
in opinion from Father Mandonnet who attributed it to
Bacon. (See Revue Neo-Scolastique, Vol. XVII (August 1910),
pp. 315-35.) He, however, agreed with Mandonnet that
the importance of Bacon has been over-estimated.

After the following pages were in the hands of the printers
my attention was called to a volume published in 1950 by
Theodore Crowley, containing a detailed study of the life
and works of Roger Bacon and of his philosophical beliefs
and teachings, with an extensive Bibliography, to which the
student of scholasticism is referred.

INTRODUCTION

ON the title page Charles has quoted from the Opus majus,
p. 3, as follows, "Those reconstructing works always receive
contradiction and obstruction, and yet the truth prevailed
and will prevail until the day of Anti-Christ."

In a Preface (not so named) Charles introduces his Life of
Bacon by a reference to the article by M. V. Cousin in the
Journal des Savants, in which the philosopher is termed "one
of the most liberal and greatest minds of the middle ages".

In his work Cousin made the suggestion that some learned
man in Oxford or Cambridge should undertake the biography
of Bacon which Charles has taken upon himself to attempt.
After searching the libraries of France and England and such
works as L'Histoire litter air e de la France , he claimed to fill a
gap in the history of the philosophy of the thirteenth century.

This biography he divided into five parts, in which he
passes no judgment upon Roger Bacon, but essays an
impartial presentation of the man and his message.

Chapter I commences with a record of the writers who
have mentioned Bacon by name, chiefly in the sixteenth
century. Leland attempted to reassemble the fragments of
the works; Balaeus, 1 the admirer of Wycliffe, gave him a
place among the great men of Britain; John Pits wrote of
him with respect, whilst Luke Wadding [1558-1657], the
historian of the Franciscan Order, repeated his assertions.
Charles also refers to John Dee [1527-1608], the alchemist, 2

1 The nearest name to Balaeus in Chambers^ Biographical Dictionary- is
that of John Bale [1495-1563] author of a Latin history of English
literature, which appeared in 1548.

8 His reputation as a sorcerer rested on his possession of a mechanical
beetle, and he claimed to have found in Glastonbury the Elixir for
transmuting gold. See also K. K. Doberer, The Goldmakers (translated
by E. W. Dickes), Nicholson & Watson, London, 1948.

ix

INTRODUCTION

as well as to lesser known writers whom he names Naud,
William Cave [1637-1713], Oudin, and Combach (Professor
of Philosophy at Marburg), who proved himself "a zealous
editor" of the Perspective and the Considerations of Mathe-
matics.

Allusion is also made to Kenelm Digby [1603-1665] and
John Selden [1584-1654], and to them is attributed the plan
of publishing Bacon's complete philosophical works, a plan
which proved too difficult to fulfil. Thus it was left to the
English doctor, Samuel Jebb [1694-1772] to publish at the
request of Richard Mead, the London physician, an edition
of the Opus majus. Another rare edition was reproduced in
Venice in 1750 by "the Franciscans della Vigna". Finally,
in his own day, Charles has nothing but praise for the work
of M. V. Leclerc, in his ISHistoire litteraire de la France,
while Cousin's contribution to the Journal des Savants
appeared in 1848.

Charles informs us that Leland's pages on Bacon were
reproduced by Thomas Tanner [1674-1735] in his Eibliotheca
Hiberno Britannica (London, 1748), but, notwithstanding all
the allusions, so little is known of Bacon that he himself was
obliged to turn to the printed works and especially to the
manuscripts for his biography.

THIRTEENTH - CENTURY
BACKGROUND

IT has been pointed out that the life of Roger Bacon was,
except for fourteen years at the commencement and eight
years at the end, co-terminous with the whole of the thir-
teenth century.

It was a century of strife both in the West and in the East.
In England loyal barons strove with those who supported the
French conquests, while on the Continent the long and des-
perate war of words and deeds between Innocent III and
later Popes on the one side, and the Emperor Frederick II
on the other, resulted in a long succession of battles and
massacres in Italy and Sicily. The French King, Louis IX,
heard the call of the Crusades, which were responsible
directly and indirectly for so many deaths from violence and
disease.

In distant Asia, Jenghiz Khan had died in 1227, and with
the election of his son Ogdai expansion of Mogul rule took
place under the command of Batu, son of Jagi a brother
of Ogdai who had died during the lifetime of Jenghiz. The
Tartar invasion of Europe, which had reached Hungary and
threatened to overwhelm Western Europe, as it had ruined
and ravaged Southern Russia, was brought to an end by the
death of Ogdai in 1241, which created the necessity of holding
a council to elect his successor. The election of Kuyak in
1246 was attended by Friar John de Piano Carpini, whose
attendance at the celebrations in Central Asia bore witness
to the existence of a force which did not rely on swords or
armies to make its voice heard in the world.

Carpini was one of those travelling emissaries of the little
Poor Man of Assisi, who "above the battle" bade men aban-
don their arms, make up their quarrels, seek reconciliation

THIRTEENTH. CENTURY BACKGROUND

with their personal and national foes, and bring about peace
by understanding and negotiation.

The Franciscans journeyed far to England and Germany
preaching the Message and gaining adherents wherever
they went. With the rise of the universities, like Paris and
Oxford, the Preachers became students and scholars, embrac-
ing many such within their Order.

Thus the thirteenth century became a period of immense
intellectual activity, based on a renewal of interest in classical
authors, particularly Aristotle, in the writings of the Christian
Fathers and of the Arabian philosophers and doctors, resulting
not only in scholasticism but in a fresh outlook upon science
in all its branches. Upon all these forms of knowledge, as
upon the life and learning of his time one man was to stamp
the indelible impression of his thought, and that man was
Roger Bacon.

I The Life of Roger Bacon

The monk of Oxford has paid with his repose and
with his liberty for the privilege of being in advance
of his time.

Emile Charles, Roger Bacon, 53.

THE date of Roger Bacon's birth is uncertain. He was born
at Ilchester, in Somerset, identified by some with Iscalis,
mentioned by Ptolemy. The site of a Roman villa has been
discovered there.

Writing to the Pope in 1267 Roger says that for forty years
since he learned the alphabet he had not ceased from study.
By adding thirteen years to these forty and then reckoning
back we reach the year 1214 which is usually accepted as the
year of Bacon's birth.

His family was of high estate and wealthy and some of his
brothers were associated with the disorders of the reign of
Henry III, in which they showed loyalty to the King against
the barons. As a result they suffered banishment and constant
change of abode, involving them in financial loss, which
brought Roger to a state of penury. By the year 1267 his
father was dead and his mother living with her son, Roger's
eldest brother.

After being educated at home for a time, Roger Bacon
went to Oxford, where he found masters likely to encourage
his love of science and of languages, and to strengthen his
own independence of mind and contempt for authority.

Such men were Robert Bacon (probably an uncle), Adam
de Marisco, Richard Fitsacre, Edmond Rich and Robert
Grosseteste.

13

14 ROGER BACON

Edmund Rich 1 [1175-1240] was born at Abingdon and
educated at a grammar school in Oxford. Later he studied
in Paris, where he graduated, afterwards returning to
Oxford where he was the first to lecture on Aristotle. In
1233 he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, at the
suggestion of Pope Gregory IX, and is termed in the
Encyclopedia Britannica "one of the most saintly and
attractive figures in the history of the English Church' '. He
was canonized in 1247, and on account of his asceticism seems
to have well deserved the title of 'Saint'. He is said to have
experienced visions while still a schoolboy.

Robert Grosseteste 2 [1176-1253] born at Stradbrook, in
Suffolk, was educated at Oxford, studying law, medicine and
the natural sciences. Notwithstanding the fact that he knew
little Greek or Hebrew, and was little interested in the
works of Aristotle, he found favour with Bacon on account
of his knowledge of natural science. In 1235 he became
Bishop of Lincoln, and is celebrated not only as an ecclesiastic
but as a statesman, and as the first physicist and mathema-
tician of his age. His ideas were subsequently developed by
Bacon.

Adam de Marisco, called in English Adam Marsh [circa
1200-1258], Franciscan scholar and theologian, was born in
the diocese of Bath, and was at Oxford the pupil of Robert
Grosseteste. About 1238 he was the lecturer at the Franciscan
House at Oxford, where he taught Roger Bacon, who re-
cognized his greatness in theology and mathematics. As a
Franciscan he sought to exercise the office of a mediator be-
tween the warring sides in the state, rebuking both, in his
capacity as statesman.

1 There is an account of Rich in Elizabeth Goudge, Towers in the
Misty a study, in novel form, of Oxford down to the end of the reign
of Elizabeth I.

2 We are told by Francis Seymour Stevenson, M.P., in his Robert
Grosseteste that "Roger Bacon constantly spoke of him as Saint Robert,
and the rules which he composed for the guidance of the Countess
of Lincoln were all called 'Reules of Seynt Robert' ", p. 327.
(London. Macmillan & Co. Ltd. 1899.)

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 15

These men were, according to Matthew Paris, 1 "the greatest
of those who were then reading 7 '.

Civil strife made it necessary to rebuke the discontented
barons, and the preacher selected to administer the admoni-
tory sermon was Robert Bacon, who, after his address, warned
the King that peace was impossible so long as he banned from
his advisers Pierre Desroches, 2 Bishop of Winchester. He
emphasized the need for caution, reminding the monarch of
the perils of a ship at sea stone and rocks.

Roger was present at this scene, which took place at Oxford in
1233, he being then about nineteen years of age, and it has been
suggested that he was himself responsible for this bold irony.

After proving an apt pupil of his Oxford teachers, Bacon
proceeded to Paris, where he obtained his doctorate, pursuing
his studies till, according to his own statement, the year 1250
when he returned to Oxford.

His gifts were at first recognized but soon his renown was
clouded; he became hated through jealousy and on account of
the harshness of his character, with the result that his
second period of residence in Paris began in 1257, the first
having begun not later than 1234.

While in France he encountered the revolt of the Pastour-
eaux 3 and remarked, "I have seen their chief and have seen
that he carries in his hand some sacred talisman, and so to
speak some relics".

1 MATTHEW PARIS [1200-1259], chronicler of the thirteenth cen-
tury, entered the Benedictine monastery of St. Albans in 1217. His
chief work is Historia major dating from the creation to 1259. He
appreciated strength of character, even though it should pursue a
pathway of which Paris did not approve.

2 Was for a time in charge of King Henry III, but was replaced for
four years by Hubert de Burgh. When the latter fell from favour in
1232 became administrator for the King.

3 The name given to the Shepherds' Crusade in the middle of the
thirteenth century when a Master Jacob came from Hungary into
northern France in the year 1251. As a linguist, he knew Latin,
German and French, and stated that he had been sent by God as the
Head of a Crusade, composed of members of the ordinary people.
These ordinary people, particularly shepherds, quickly gathered

16 ROGER BACON

At this time Alexander of Hales 1 was entrusting his
teachings to Jean de la Rochelle, and in 1245 Albertus
Magnus (Albert the Great) was preparing to take up his
neglected studies.

Alexander of Hales was born in Gloucestershire, trained in
the monastery of Hales, became an Archdeacon, and later
repaired to Paris where he took the degree of Doctor, and
became famous as a teacher. This title he refused to relin-
quish when he entered the Franciscan community, and his
fame rests upon his work, the Summa theologiae, undertaken
at the request of Pope Innocent IV. The form of this Summa
is that of question and answer, and it was intended to be a
system of instruction for all the schools. The "irrefragible
doctor" died in 1246.

Albert of Cologne [circa 1205-1280] called "the Great" and
"the Universal Doctor", was a member of the Dominican
Order, and the instructor of Thomas Aquinas. 2 As Provincial

round him to the number, it is said, of 100,000. Jacob claimed to
have had heavenly visitations and to have seen angels.

The movement was at first accepted by those in authority, but soon
became suspected by them on the grounds that it was anti-Jewish
and anti- clerical. Violence supervened, with the result that the
Shepherd's leader was killed in an affray. See The Encyclopaedia of
Religious Knowledge (Schaff-Herzog), Vol. VIII (London, Educational
Book Co., Ltd.) which states that the writings of Matthew Paris are
the chief source of our information.

1 ALEXANDER OF HALES was succeeded by Jean de la Rochelle, who
taught only till 1253. Alexander was the author of a treatise De
a/lima, which was interesting inasmuch as it showed that psychology
formed part of the discussions of the time, which naturally resulted
from acquaintance with Aristotle's De anima^ and the numerous
Greek and Arabian commentaries upon it.

* See reference in Charles, Vie de Bacon, to the pupil of Albert, called
"the great dumb Bull of Sicily". Thomas Aquinas [1227-1274] the
"Dumb Ox" is said to have been so named by his fellow pupils at
Cologne, on account of his silence and apparent stupidity, but his
teacher remarked "that if that ox should once begin to bellow, the
world would be filled with the noise". William A. Wheeler, M.A.,
A Dictionary of the Noted Names of Fiction. (London. George Bell
&Sons, 1876.)

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 17

of his Order he publicly defended it against the University of
Paris, and replied to the argument of Averroes. 1 He studied
thoroughly both the works of Aristotle in the Latin transla-
tions, and also the commentaries thereon of Arabian philoso-
phers, with the result that he became a master in the art of
systematized thought, and was sometimes scornfully termed
the "Ape of Aristotle". One of his chief works was a com-
mentary upon the Sumrna theologiae, but he also had a wide
knowledge of physical science, and is reputed to have been
learned in magic.

In Paris Bacon was at first scandalized by the vices and
turbulence of the clerks, and this led him to begin that
enquiry regarding people and things which caused him to
censure the first and to seek to reform the second.

The doctors were intolerant theologians, or followers of
Averroes, who was considered the most impious enemy of all
religions. This Arabian philosopher [11261198] was one of
the commentators of Aristotle's works, and had studied many
subjects, including medicine, his doctrine of the "active
intelligence" being afterwards discussed by Bacon and other
scholastic authorities.

Such were the many masters from whom a choice might
be made by a scholar like Roger Bacon, but he selected none
of them, but rather an obscure person of whom history has
lost all trace. 2 After examining the doctrines of Greeks and
Arabs, of Franciscans and Dominicans, he found no sufficient

1 ABRIL WALID AVERROES [1126-1198] greatest Arabian philosopher
in the West and commentator upon Aristotle. Born in Cordova, he
studied many subjects, including medicine, and owes his fame to the
Christian schoolmen who admired and utilized his commentaries.
These were called in Paris the Latin Averroists. It remained for
Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim (Paracelsus), who lived 400
years later, to reject the teachings of both Averroes and Avicenna,
and to consign to the flames their learned doctrines, on the grounds
that they had for centuries fettered men's minds and prevented them
from grasping Nature's truths.

2 There is in the Imperial Library (Latin MSS. 7378) a collection of
treatises entitled Geometria. Folio 67 begins with a collection manu-
script entitled Epistola PetH Peregrini de Maricourt ad Sygerium de

B

18 ROGER BACON

satisfaction. Among his friends were William of Shirwood,
the Treasurer of Lincoln Cathedral, the mathematician
Campano of Navarre, Master Nicholas, the teacher of Amaury
de Montfort, and John of London, called by the doctor-
historian Samuel Jebb "John Peckham", but greater than
these appears to have been his approved teacher Master
Peter, venerated by Bacon as the most learned among the
men of his time, and as a living example of true science. He
seems to have been a remarkable figure from the portrait
that Bacon has traced of him. A solitary man, eschewing
renown, he sought to dissimulate his learning and to withhold
from men the truth that they do not deserve to receive. He
belonged to no powerful Order, and desired neither pupils
nor admirers, dreading the importunity of the crowd and
combining aloofness from mankind with an immense faith in
himself. While he sought no 'Chair', he was himself beset
by would-be students, who hastened to Paris to hear him,
but he had a contempt for men, many of whom he regarded
as fools and charlatans, who dishonoured philosophy, rendered
medicine ridiculous, and falsified theology. His opinion
seems to have been that those who see most clearly are in
reality blind, and if they make vain efforts to perceive, truth
dazzles them.

Hidden away in security and silence, he devoted himself to
chemistry, natural science, mathematics, medicine and above
all to experiment. "Lord of experimentation" was the name
given to him by his pupil, and it was experimentation which
revealed to him the secrets of nature, the art of healing,
celestial phenomena and their relation to others, and to
despise nothing which tended to increase knowledge and turn
it to practical purposes.

Fontancourt, militem, de magnete. According to Charles, Balaeus, Pits
and Wadding falsely attribute this work to Bacon, whilst Wood and
Cave, as well as Charles himself, believe its true author to be Peter
Perigrinus. Charles goes on to quote M. de Humbold as mentioning
a certain Adsygerius whom Bacon's biographer identifies with Peter
Perigrinus, otherwise Peter de Maricourt, Master Peter. (See also
an additional note on PETRUS PEREGRINUS at the end of this chapter.)

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 19

Certain authorities affirm that Master Peter, or Maitre
Pierre as he should be termed since he was a native of
Picardy, was known to Bacon by other names, notably Petrus
de Machariscuria, Macharniscuria, Peter de Maharncourt,
and Pierre de Maricourt, according to the Encyclopedia
Britannica, Vol. XXI, 294.

He is here mentioned as a recluse, a worker in metals, the
inventor of armour, and the writer of a letter De magnete,
which is partly reproduced in Libri's Histoire des Sciences
mathematicjues en Italie, 1838, ii. 70-71, 487-505.

This mysterious personage taught Bacon languages,
astronomy, mathematics, and above all experimental science,
so that one may be tempted to remark with some measure
of truth that the great Roger was the u Ape of Pierre".

Master Peter was scornful of 'savants', calling them weak-
lings and inquisitors. He constructed a sphere intended to
imitate the movements of the heavenly bodies, and he
excelled in optics, studying refraction and burning glasses,
but over and above all the knowledge that Bacon derived
from his teacher must be set his admiration of independence
of mind, and his hatred of the indifferent and uninstructed
masses of mankind. Says Charles, 'Pierre holds his closed
hand full of truths; Bacon opens it widely."

On account of his poverty Bacon found himself at this time
in need of help and protection, and three sources of power
might have come to his assistance the King, the Pope and a
religious organization. When Adam de Marisco joined the
Franciscan Order Bacon followed his example. 1 Previously he
had possessed a certain amount of money, and it appears that
both at Oxford and in Paris he had been engaged in numerous
studies, inventing instruments, and instructing young men
in astronomy, and in arranging astronomical tables. His

1 Charles believes that Bacon joined the Franciscans at a fairly
advanced age, proving this from words in the Opus tertium: "Whilst
I was in another condition in olio statu they were astonished that I
could stand the excessive work which I imposed upon myself".
Since that time it appears that Bacon worked less strenuously.

20 ROGER BACON

acquaintance with the works of Seneca and with those of
Cicero served to mature his ideas, and his familiarity with the
classical authors aroused a discontent with the readers and
copyists of Paris, who in translating the texts corrupted them.

Having completed his course of studies with Master Peter,
Bacon spent seven or eight years at Oxford in the continuance
of his researches, being at that period in the prime of life. 1
This time of comparative peace and prosperity was of short
duration, being terminated by exile to Paris, due doubtless
to the hostility evoked by both opinions and practices
unacceptable to the Oxford authorities.

Thus in 1257 began that period of living entombment
resulting from his incarceration within the walls of a
Franciscan House, following on his denouncement in 1256 to
the General of the Franciscans, Jean de Fidanza, better known
as St. Bonaventura.

This man, called "the Seraphic Doctor", was born in
Tuscany in 1221. It was the hope of his mother that he
would enter the Church, and it was St. Francis of Assisi who
gave him the name of Bonaventura, after ministering to him
the power of healing. He entered the Franciscan Order in
1243, studying in Paris under Alexander of Hales, or his
successor John of Rochelle. Having risen to heights of fame,
he exercised his powers as General to forbid Roger Bacon to
lecture at Oxford, and ordered him to Paris, probably on
account of his disapproval of Bacon's hatred of authority, and
of his scientific experiments.

1 Thorndike, op. cit., alleges that Bacon, before becoming a friar,
had written students' text-books, but that he himself states that after
joining the Franciscans he was not able to work so much and that he
"took no part in the outward affairs of the university", on account
of lack of health. He told the Pope that he was only composing a
few chapters on one science or another in order to please his friends,
and he wrote of himself as of one "unheard by anyone and as it were
buried in oblivion", p. 621 (quoted from Opus tertium, Gap. i,
Brewer, 7). Thorndike also states, p. 627, that in the Opus minus
Bacon complained that "his prelates" required him to do things
every day, and that in the Opus tertium he likewise murmured against
continual "setbacks".

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 21

Bonaventura rejected Aristotle, condemning the Aristotelian
doctrine of the eternity of the world, and attributing to this
philosopher many of the prevalent heresies. He was an
eminent theologian, but a mystical one, laying stress on the
importance of the heart and of the emotions, and stressing the
need for meditation and asceticism, as exemplified in the
monastic way of life.

Bacon was at this time without friends, Grosseteste having
died in 1253; Adam Marsh, Richard Fitsacre, and Edmund
Rich were occupied with other matters. He was obliged to
leave his pupils, among them Friar Bungay, and his observa-
tion tower, whence it had been his habit to view the heavenly
spheres. This was formerly shown to visitors at Oxford.

For the next ten years the Franciscan prisoner was subjected
to persecution, exile and disgrace. At first he was forbidden
to publish any work, which deprivation to one whose burning
desire was to spread the truth as he believed it, was a severe
one indeed. He agreed with the dictum of Seneca: "I love to
learn, only in order to teach " and held that science would
perish if it were not communicated to others.

Charles is of the opinion that since cloisteral life treats a
man as if he were a child, his Order inflicted upon this
great man the same chastisement as it would have inflicted
upon a rebellious scholar. His diet was bread and water, but
the starving of his body was not enough; intercourse with
kindred minds was denied him; even his brother, who shared
his intellectual abilities, was out of reach.

One consolation remained to him. A young man appointed
to minister to his needs proved an apt pupil and devoted
disciple, becoming later an exponent of great learning, so
that Bacon was able to present him to Pope Clement IV as a
product of his instruction, and an example of good education
and good method. All that is certainly known of him is that
he was called John.

Clement had been known earlier as Guido Foulques (or
Fulcode), the son of a lawyer and judge. He himself studied
law and became adviser to Louis IX of France. He married,

22 ROGER BACON

but after the death of his wife he took orders, and became
successively Bishop, Archbishop (of Narbonne) and Cardinal
Bishop of Sabina. In 1263 he was appointed to be Papal
Legate in England and was elected Pope at Perugia in 1265.

As Archbishop, Guido heard of the Oxford monk, said to be
possessed of marvellous secrets, which were the envy of his
fellows. Being unable to communicate with Bacon, Fulcode
made use of an intermediary, whose name was R6mond de
Laon, and whose loyalty to Bacon was such that he could well
be trusted to fill this office. Through him, Guido learnt that
the imprisoned monk had written a great work on science
and on the reform of philosophy. He wrote to Bacon several
times but could not contact the incarcerated Brother.

In 1265 Fulcode became Pope (taking the name Clement
IV), to Bacon's inexpressible joy. He cried out in triumph,
"Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Who
has exalted on the throne of His Kingdom a prince who can
serve the interests of science!" And again, "The time is
propitious for the works of wisdom!"

Notwithstanding the strictness of his surveillance, he was
at this time able to communicate with Clement through a
knight named Bonneceor, making known his pitiable condi-
tion. He complained not only of the lack of books, but of the
supervision of his writing, and of the difficulty of trusting
only to memory.

In 1266 he received a letter from the Pope requesting that
Bacon send him one of his works, but Clement did not, as yet,
dare to set him free. The request was repeated, but fresh
difficulties arose, through lack of books, copyists and money.
Nevertheless, the Opus ma jus was produced, but at what cost
he explained in the introduction, which seems to have been
intended as a kind of reply to the Pope's letter, in which he
traces the errors and ignorance of his century, and proposes
remedies thereto.

At first the authorities in the Franciscan House did every-
thing possible to hinder his labours. To Clement he wrote,
"I will give you, perhaps, some certain details of the hard

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 23

treatment to which I am subjugated, but I will write it with
my own hand in consideration of the importance of secrecy. "

He complained, further, of his intermediaries that they did
not make plain to Clement his desperate plight. In vain he
sought to persuade them; in vain he appealed to his brother
whose riches had vanished when his allegiance to the English
King had brought him to ruin. He tried rich and powerful
prelates, but the result was the same. They suspected him,
distrusting his honesty.

At last Bacon bethought himself of poorer friends through
whose help he was able to raise sixty pounds, and by this
means was enabled to send the Opus majus by his disciple to
Clement at Rome. Tradition states that John took with him
certain instruments which Bacon had invented, among them
a crystal lens to prove a point in optics.

The Opus majus was followed by Opus minus and Opus
tertium, but the Pope was not satisfied, demanding perfect
treatises on philosophy. In his reply, Bacon showed that
larger works were impossible for him with the limited means
at his disposal.

John has been identified with John of London, a friend of
Bacon, but a master, not a disciple; and with John of Paris,
of whom Bacon wrote:

"He is a poor child who has come to me and on whom I
have had pity; I have nourished and instructed him for
the love of God, and have loved him for his aptitude and
good conduct. He is twenty years old, full of sweetness,
goodness and discretion: and none in Paris knows
philosophy better. He is well versed in the Scriptures
and knows better than doctors of theology the errors in
the sacred texts. The Pope can prove him."

Clement decided at length to give Bacon some marks of his
sympathy other than a sterile and perhaps dangerous curiosity.
The so-longed-for protector had appeared at last. Bacon was
free again and returned to Oxford. His victory was short for
his dream dissolved with the death of Clement in 1269.

24 ROGER BACON

His successor Gregory X [1271-1276] owed his election to
Bonaventura, but Bacon remained undiscouraged. He pub-
lished a new work of which fragmentary manuscripts
remain, containing, besides purely scientific criticisms,
attacks upon jurists, prelates, princes and the mendicant
friars, the ignorance and dissolute conduct of priests, and the
corruption which prevailed at Rome.

His enemies were on the watch and his nocturnal studies
of the stars, his weird instruments, his alchemy, and his
association with Friar Bungay, 1 a Franciscan mathematician
and philosopher, who was considered a worker in witchcraft
and charms, aroused suspicion.

In 1277 Archbishop Etienne Templer solemnly condemned
more than two hundred philosophical propositions, some of
them being those of Bacon. 2 The Franciscans, being influ-
enced by new ideas, called for greater discipline, and after
the death of Bonaventura in 1274, Jerome d'Ascoli became
General of the Order, and proved himself a tyrannical

1 THOMAS BUNGAY was born at the small town of this name near
Lowestoft and was buried at Nottingham. He was accounted a
magician.

1 Thorndike, op. ciY., 628, mentions the Chronicle of the XXIV
Generals (about 1370), which recorded that the teaching of "Friar
Roger Bacon of England, master of sacred theology" was condemned
because it contained "some suspected novelties". Later, on p. 674,
Thorndike enquires as to the nature of these "novelties" for which
the Friar was convicted in 1277 or 1278.

Thorndike states that other Franciscans had written on astrological
subjects, and he refers to a rule drawn up in 1292 for the friars at
Paris against the purchase of "curious books", probably like those
which Bacon himself condemned. In this connection it is interesting
to note that, according to Thorndike, p. 669, Bacon made a distinc-
tion between mathematica in the sense of superstitious occult prac-
tices, and the astrology which was considered legitimate. The four
aspects of such mathematica appear to have been the belief in the
fatal influence of the stars; the conjuration of demons; the association
of astrological observations with figures and incantations; and the
fraudulent methods employed by magicians in certain instances.
The suggestion seems to be that Bacon went too far in some of his
writings, thus provoking the wrath of the authorities.

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 25

character. He came to Paris in 1278 and held there a
General Chapter, judgment being passed on Friar Roger
Bacon who was termed Englishman and Master of Theology.
Jerome forbade the Order to embrace his doctrines, and cast
the author of them into prison, his Franciscan brothers show-
ing no sympathy with the victim of the judgment.

Bacon himself wished to appeal to the reigning Pope,
Nicholas III, while his followers tried to save him, but in
vain. Jerome forestalled him, with the result that the old
man was imprisoned for fourteen years, during which time
he was unable to employ his talents, as is stated by some
authorities.

It is also stated by some that Bacon sent to Jerome, who
had succeeded to the Papacy as Nicholas IV [1288-1292] a
treatise entitled The Means of Retarding the Accidents of
Old Age, hoping, since all other means seemed futile, to
interest, and perhaps to mollify him. It had the opposite
result.

Four years later, hi 1292, at the age of seventy-eight,
Bacon composed his final work Compendium theologiae,
containing neither attacks nor complaints, but written as he
himself stated, because "I have often been begged to write a
work useful to theology".

Thus in this year, Bacon was free for the first time to
point out to his contemporaries the hindrances to science,
and his suggestions for reform.

By this time Raymond Gaufredi, a man of enlightened
mind and gentle character, occupied the position of General
of the Friars Minor, and he at once sought to reverse the
decrees of Jerome, who at this period was still living, and
who objected to Raymond's decision. He died later in the
year.

In the same year Gaufredi, at the Chapter of Paris, revoked
the sentences passed in 1278 on certain friars, who through
his clemency, received their liberation. Among them was
Bacon, whose imprisonment came to an end, though it has
been suggested that the General's action was an act of grati-

26 ROGER BACON

tude for the revelation to him of alchemical secrets by the
monk of Oxford. 1

The date of this famous monk's death is uncertain, but it
took place at Oxford, where he was buried. No trace remains
of his monastery, nor indeed any sign of his sojourn in the
city, except that a certain site still bears the name of "The
Friars".

Twyne relates that the Friars Minor, viewing his works
with horror, nailed them to planks and left them. This may
account for the imperfect state of the manuscripts.

His ideas remained more or less hidden for three centuries.
Not a doctor of the fourteenth century quoted him; a Scottish
poet of the fifteenth century associated Bacon with other
magicians and wrote of

"Frier Bacone with many subtil points of juglirie."

The theatre has represented him in the garb of a magician
surrounded by frightening objects; as a patriotic Englishman
who has written a marvellous work; as a head of brass which
spoke and pronounced an oracle. Two friends questioned
him. They asked him how Albion may be encircled with a
wall of brass. At first, silence, but when the magician's
attention is diverted, the head utters mysterious words, and
they hear it not.

Naude and others have sought to clear Bacon from the
accusation of magic, by showing that Albert, Robert of
Lincoln, Gerbert 2 and others, had also their head of brass
and their speaking automaton.

Bacon had, according to Charles, no need of such an
apology. He points out that the wonder of the public,
bordering on horror, is the homage paid by the ignorant to a
science which it does not understand.

1 Charles believed that the gift was made to Nicholas III.

2 GERBERT [940-1003] was born at Aurillac in Auvergne, and
became Pope Sylvester II in 999. On account of his attainments in
chemistry, mathematics and philosophy, he acquired the reputation
of being in league with the devil. He was appointed Archbishop of
Ravenna.

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 27

Charles goes on to relate that in 1433 the most precious
books were sold by the successors of the great twelfth-century
scholars to Doctor Thomas Gascoigne, who gave them, at a
later date, to the libraries of Lincoln, Durham, Balliol and
O'Neil. Many of these manuscripts have been recovered by
the Bodleian, while some dispersed works of Bacon have at
length found shelter there.

His French biographer gives 1779 as the year up till which
Bacon's observatory tower was still shown to the public at
Oxford, and he claimed that at the time when he was writing,
no one had undertaken to study the riches enclosed within
the libraries of more than one town, and that the manuscripts
of Bacon had hardly been taken from the colleges at Oxford,
and from the British Museum, except to be placed in French
(presumably his own) hands.

ADDITIONAL NOTE ON PETRUS PEREGRINUS

A. C. Crombie, the latest exponent of the theory and practice of
experimental science in his Robert Grosseteste^ considers Roger Bacon
"by far the most important" of the immediate disciples of the
learned Bishop of Lincoln. Crombie states that, by the year 1266,
Bacon had "maturely grasped the Grossetestian theory of experi-
mental science" and had expounded it in the Opus minus. He advances
the interesting suggestion that Petrus Peregrinus, as he terms him,
had learnt from Bacon, and indirectly from Grosseteste. He quotes
a remarkable passage from De Magnete as to the importance of the
use and "carefulness" by the investigator "of his own hands".

Grombie goes on to point out that the De Magnete is "the best
known example of the use of the experimental method in the
thirteenth century", and that the first part treated of experiments
in the study of magnetism, while the second described the construc-
tion of instruments. Then followed an account of experiments with
a lodestone.

The conclusion of the treatise, which conclusion takes the form
of a letter from the Picard Peregrinus to his fellow-countryman
Sygerus de Fontancourt, affords, as Grombie informs us, "the only
certain date in the meagre records of his life". The passage as
cjuoted by Crombie runs thus: "Finished in camp at the siege of
Lucera in the year of our Lord 1269 on the 8th day of August."
Robert Grosseteste and the origins of experimental science, 11001700
(Oxford. The Clarendon Press. 1953), pp. 162, 204-8.

II The Works of Roger Bacon

IN his biography of Roger Bacon, Charles is of opinion that
it was his passion for liberty and reform for which Bacon was
persecuted, not chiefly for necromancy, since a chapter of one
of his treatises Contra necromanticos, is directed against the
superstition. The treatise, however, upholds true astrology,
as accepted by the greater minds of the time, as expressing
the influence of the stars upon terrestrial phenomena.

The incriminating pamphlets On the Prognostication of the
Stars and True Astronomy survive as fragments of the fourth
part of the Opus majus. Bacon maintained that men have
the power to counteract the potent influence of the stars, by
the exercise of the will, as in overcoming the passions. He
maintained, nevertheless, that the heavenly bodies cease-
lessly influence our daily life, and that by studying these
forces of nature one can foretell the future, and even shape
magic formulas, and fashion charms efficacious in healing the
sick, and put to flight evil spells.

Bacon indicated how wrong were the theologians in accus-
ing this science. In Opus majus, p. 250, he writes, "One does
not speak of it in public because one receives at once the
name of magician; it has been abused; knaves have employed
it, demons and women have been instructed and have spread
this superstition which infects all nations. "

In answer to the possible question as to how Bacon became
charged with "certain suspected new-fangled notions* ', it
may be stated that he seems to have derived them from his
study of Arabian astrology, which emphasized the necessity
of relating rites to the conjunction of the planets. The first
author with whose works Bacon appears to have been
familiar, and who taught this idea, was Albumazar.

This horoscope of religions was frowned upon by representa-

28

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 29

tives of orthodoxy, invoking, as it does, the dependence of
religious systems upon the movements of heavenly bodies. It
is possible that from his intimacy with Arabian astrological
teachings the idea of a reform of the calendar may have
suggested itself.

Had this remarkable student been willing to sacrifice his
independence of mind, he might have won the support of his
Order against the Dominicans, but he blamed the latter
equally with the Franciscans and the Church, praising only
the poor and humble, like his pupil and disciple John, and his
master Pierre de Maricourt, like the suspect Robert of
Lincoln, or like Adam de Marisco, and Thomas de Saint
David.

One of his accusations against the religious Orders was that
they permitted young boys to become doctors, without hav-
ing first been pupils, or having been examined. He thundered
against ignorance and corruption, maintaining that the
former had never been so crass as during the previous forty
years, during which the Orders had prided themselves on
advancing science.

King, Pope and people were included in his diatribes, and
he sought to model society on Christian principles, derived,
not from the Doctors of the Church, but from pagan and
infidel sources Aristotle, Seneca, Plato, Socrates, Avicenna 1
and Alfarabilis, an eastern philosopher who wrote on very
many subjects, after studying at Baghdad, travelled exten-
sively, and died at Damascus.

It will thus be evident that Roger Bacon was persecuted
for more weighty reasons than that of being suspected of
being an astrologer.

The rarity of his works resulted from the circumstances of

1 AVICENNA [979-1037], the greatest of Arabian scholars in the East,
as Averroes was famous in the West, i.e. Spain. He was born near
Bokhara and was physician to several rulers, the most important of
his hundred treatises being his Canon of medicine, which remained a
standard text-book till the time of Paracelsus, who repudiated his
teachings. Other works were concerned with logic, physics, mathe-
matics and metaphysics.

30 ROGER BACON

his life, troubled, as it was, by constant interference on the
part of those who controlled it. Very few have been pub-
lished; others are little more than fragments, scattered within
the libraries of England and France.

An eighteenth-century physician, Samuel Jebb, M.D.
[1694-1772], living at Stratford-le-Bow, undertook to publish
what he believed to be the Opus majus, placing at the head
of this edition a learned sketch of the author's life. This
edition was reprinted at Venice in 1750.

Several French savants have attributed works to Bacon
which Charles refused to recognize as his, but quotes from
M. V. LeClerc's L'histoire litteraire the following printed
works :

1 . Speculum alchimiae. (Mirror of Alchemy) ; consisting
of seven chapters reprinted in 1541 and 1702. Translated
into English by one who is nameless, and into French by a
gentleman of Dauphine. Sometimes a false title Miroir
de maistre Jean de Mehun is substituted for the Mirror of
Alchemy "composed by the thrice famous and learned
fryer, R. Bacon. Also a most excellent and learned dis-
course of the admirable force and efficiency of Art".
(London. 1597.)

2. De mirabili potestate artis et naturae ubi de philoso-
phorum lapide, etc. (Concerning the marvellous power of
art and of nature everywhere by the stone of the philoso-
phers.) Published by Oronce Finee. Paris. 1542. An
often unintelligible and very defective edition reprinted
in the Theatrum chemicum. Oxford edition. 1594.
Hamburg edition. 1613. More intelligible. This work was
translated into English in London in 1597 under the name
of R. Bechin. In 1659 under the title Frier Bacon, his
discovery of the miracle of art ', nature and magic faithfully
translated out of Dr. Dee's 1 own copy by T. M. and never

1 DR. JOHN DEE [1527-1608] was born in London and educated at
St. John's College, Cambridge. He led a long and varied existence,
being associated with three monarchs Edward VI, Mary of England
and Elizabeth I, being employed both at home and abroad as a

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 31

before in English. One of the best known of Bacon's
fragments.

3. Libellus Rogerii Baconi Angli doctissimi mathematici
et medici de retardis senectutis accidentibus et de sensibus
conservandis. Oxonae. 1590. (A little book of the most
learned mathematician and physician Roger Bacon
Englishman concerning the retarding of old age and with
the senses retained.) Oxford. 1590. A very rare book.
The Imperial Museum 1 possesses only one English transla-
tion. (The cure of old age and preservation of youth by
the great mathematician and physician a Franciscan frier)
translated, etc. by Richard Brown. London. 1683. An
Oxford manuscript containing this pamphlet with a long
dedication to a Pope, probably Nicholas III. Sixteen chap-
ters deal with food, drink, warmth, preservation, etc.

4. Sanioris medicinus magistri D. Roger Baconis Angli
de arte chymiae scripta. (Writings of the medicine of
health of Roger Bacon Englishman concerning the art of
chemistry.) Under this title are grouped six small pamph-
lets which are considered by Charles to bear the stamp of
Bacon's style and doctrine. Three of these deal with
alchemy and surpass in usefulness the Speculum Alchimiae.

physician, mathematician and astrologer. According to Chambers^
Biographical Dictionary, Dee claimed to have found in the ruins of
Glastonbury a quantity of the Elixir, one grain of which was alleged
to transmute into gold a piece of a warming-pan. After the year
1581, Dee became acquainted with the doubtful character Edward
Kelly, with whom he spent some years working at alchemy and
necromancy. Dee died at Mortlake at the age of eighty-one. The
full story of Dee arid Kelly is to be found in the English translation
by E. W. Dickes of K. K. Doberer's The Goldmakers, published by
Nicholson & Watson, London, 1948. Doberer gives the interesting
information that the Abbot's Kitchen at Glastonbury an octagonal
building which still stands, was in the tenth century the scene of
alchemical proceedings, under its Abbot Dunstan. The Encyclo-
pedia Britannica, eleventh edition, mentions that Dee's Speculum or
mirror, { 'a piece of solid pink-tinted glass about the size of an orange",
is preserved in the British Museum.
1 The Imperial Museum of Vienna founded in the fifteenth century.

32 ROGER BACON

There are also three letters to John of Paris under the
title Tractatus trium verborum. (Three treatises of words.)

5. Roger i Baconis Angli viri eminentissimi Perspectiva.
(The Perspective of the most eminent man Roger Bacon
Englishman.) Printed edition by Johannis Combachii.
Frankfurt. 1614. In quarto. This is the fifth part of the
Opus majus.

6. Specula mathematica. (Mathematical mirrors.)
Printed as above. J. C. Frankfurt. 1614. The fourth part
of the Opus majus.

7. Roger Bacon Opus majus ad Clementem Papam.
(Roger Bacon Opus majus to Pope Clement.) Published by
Samuel Jebb in 1733 and reprinted in Venice in 1750.
This is the most important of Bacon's published works.
The first pan of the Opus majus consists of a long treatise
(pp. 358-455) entitled Tractatus magicki Rogeri Bacon de
multiplicatione specierum. (A treatise of magic of Roger
Bacon concerning the multiplication of species.)

Charles claims to have examined forty manuscripts, of which
France possesses only a small number. The Imperial Library
offered four manuscripts of which No. 2598 in Folio 21 is a
fragment. Tractatus fratris Rogeri de generations specierum.
(A treatise of Brother Roger concerning the generation of
species.) And the other, Folio 57, another fragment without
title, being the fifth part of the Opus majus, but incomplete.
The other two, No. 7455 in older Latin and No. 1153 in
newer Lathi, contained nothing of importance. The second
is very ancient with the title D. Fratris Roger Bacons de
naturis metallorum in ratione alchemica et artificiali trans-
formations. (D. Roger Bacon concerning the nature of
metals in the alchemical account and (concerning) trans-
formation by art, that is craft.)

The Mazarin Library 1 possesses two manuscripts, one of
no importance containing only a copy of De multiplicatione
and of the Perspective; the other inscribed with the No., 127,

1 In Paris. It was opened to the public in 1642.

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 33

is a magnificent in-folio on parchment, with two columns of
a gothic writing of the fourteenth century. It belonged first
to John Dee; later to Kenelm Digby 1 whose arms and device
it bears: Vindica te tibi\ finally to Richard O'Eden, whose
signature may be read at the end. It is considered one of the
most precious remains of Bacon's labours, and has for title
Incipit liber primus Comrnunium naturaliumfratris Rogeri B.
(Here begins the first book Compendium naturalium of
Brother Roger B.) It has four principal parts, ninety folios
being followed by a second treatise De caelestibus. (Concern-
ing celestial things or matters.) The Communia refers to
physics generally and its four parts are intact. The copies in
the British Museum and the Bodleian Library are less
complete.

The Library at Amiens contains, No. 406, an enormous
parchment folio manuscript consisting of fourteenth -century
commentaries on such questions as a book of physics attributed
to Aristotle De vegetabilibus. (Concerning vegetable growths.)
And a book with the title De causis. (Concerning causes.)

The Douai Library has a copy of the Opus tertium, more
complete copies being in the British Museum and the
Bodleian Library. It contains a Greek Grammar, being a copy
of that at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and a Computus
which is an incomplete fragment of another manuscript in
the British Museum.

The Cottonian Library 2 has four manuscripts, three of
which consist of parts of the principal works, and a Calendar
from the Tables of Toledo with Arabic figures and the date
1297.

1 SIR KENELM DIGBY [1602-1665], author and diplomatist, presented
in 1632 to the Bodleian Library a collection of 236 MSS. bequeathed
to him by Thomas Allen.

8 SIR ROBERT BRUCE COTTON, BART [1571-1631], antiquary,
scholar, Parliamentarian and the author of certain tracts, collected
books at his house in Westminster on the site of the present House
of Lords, and originated the Library which bears his name, and was
presented to the nation by his great-grandson, Sir John Cotton in
1700.

34 ROGER BACON

The Royal Library 1 has also four manuscripts, comprising,
with other contents, part of the Opus majus.

Other Libraries which have Bacon remnants are the
Harleian 2 and the Lambeth, 3 but the greater number of his
works are at the Bodleian, the Ashmolean Museum and at
various Oxford colleges.

Among these works must be mentioned De conservations
sanitatis et juventutis praeservatione autore Rogero Bacono vel
Bacuno. (Concerning the conservation of health and the
preservation of youth by Roger Bacon or Bacun.) This is
another name for the book, Concerning the Retarding of
Old Age etc., published at Oxford.

Apart from these scattered remnants, five great composi-
tions contain all his thoughts, and aim in writing, pursued
for twenty-five years. These belong to two distinct periods.
In the first Bacon prepares himself to be the most learned
man of his century and the judge of it. Before 1267 he had
written nothing of importance, except the Computus
naturalium (Reflection on natural things) written in Paris
in 1263.

In 1267 the five works were commenced:

1. Opus majus

2. Opus minus

3. Opus tertium

4. A work without a title

5. Compendium theologiae

The first was begun in 1267 at Paris at the invitation of
the Pope, Clement IV, being composed of seven parts loosely
connected. His tribulations had caused Bacon to omit certain

1 This was the Library of the former Kings of England. It was added
to the British Museum hy George II in 1757, together with the
Harleian and Cottonian Libraries.

2 The Harleian Library was the collection of Robert Harley, Earl
of Oxford.

8 Lambeth Library formed part of the Archbishops' Library at
Lambeth.

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 55

sciences, amongst them alchemy; he therefore wrote an
abridged version with additions which formed the Opus
minus, one reason actuating him being the perils of the way
and the fear of losing his work.

Bacon stated that, at the order of Seigneur Clement, he
had brought together passages "chosen from the Holy
Scriptures, canonical law and philosophy" and he used these
as headings to the books he sent.

Opus minus, which was written under the pontificate of
Gregory X between 1271 and 1276, was in two parts, the first
a sort of dedicatory letter, and the second an exposition of
the Opus ma jus.

Read Bacon's own description of this effort. "I have
exposed the practical principles of Alchemy, above all accord-
ing to Avicenna in his great work in his great Alchemy, which
he calls The book of the soul, and I have treated of this
subject in the Opus minus"

Important fragments of the Opus minus are to be found hi
the manuscripts of the Digby collection, Bodleian 1819. This
manuscript gives the treatise of practical alchemy, which is
in a bad state, and also a little pamphlet De septem peccatis
studii tfieologiae (Studies of theology concerning the seven
sins), and further, De rerum germinibus (Concerning kindred
subjects) with regard to speculative alchemy.

Having obtained his freedom Bacon began the Opus
tertium, which, according to his custom, recapitulated the
substance of the Opus minus, adding "new parts of great
price full of the beauty of science which exist no where else".

It is composed of seventy-five chapters, thirty of which
seek to prove the usefulness of certain sciences, at that time
unjustly discredited. It has five parts: Introduction; Grammar
and Logic; Mathematics, general and particular; Physics,
general and particular; Metaphysics and Morals.

The next of his great works was the Compendium philoso-
phiae or Liber sex scientiarium (Summary of philosophy, or
the book of the six sciences), these comprising grammar,
logic, mathematics, physics and optics, alchemy and experi-

56 ROGER BACON

mental science, with an introduction. The date of this is
1272.

The date of the work on The Retarding of Old Age was
1276, and it was not until 1292 that his Compendium studii
theologiae appeared in at least six parts.

Of these Charles states that he had no information regard-
ing 3 and 4, and that one single mention has been made of
the sixth part. The others were as follows: the first dealt
with causes of errors; the second with logic and grammar; the
fifth with optics and the multiplication of images.

It is also the opinion of Bacon's French biographer that a
vast number of writings have been attributed to him by
historians, which writings were probably not separate pro-
ductions, but repetitions in various forms of treatises incor-
porating his ideas. Thus the one relating to Old Age appears
under other titles, while the manuscripts of the Perspective
are numerous.

The fifth part of Charles's Life of Bacon is headed "Analyses
et Extraits des Ouvrages In^dits de Roger Bacon" in which he
claims that he had transcribed as much from these manu-
scripts, as would, in the event of being able to publish,
constitute several volumes. His idea was to preserve all that
is most important from the manuscripts, but being obliged
to abandon this undertaking, he claimed to have analysed the
unpublished works and to have quoted from them, in order to
establish the faithfulness of his presentation. Then follow
fragments arranged in chronological order and in the original
Latin from Computus rerum naturalium, Opus majus, Opus
rninuS) and Opus tertium, the Compendium philosophiae and
the Compendium studii theologiae.

Ill Teachings as shown in
his Works

There is no plague comparable to the opinion of the
crowd. The crowd is blind and wicked; it is the
obstacle and enemy of all progress.

Roger Bacon, Opus majuSj p. 6. 1

ACCORDING to Brother Roger the evil of his time, nay,
the scourge which rendered futile men's best endeavours,
was authority, by which he meant the exaggerated belief in
certain great men and in certain doctrines, and the lack of
liberty in matters where reason should reign supreme.

During twenty-five years he persisted in claiming the right
to think freely and to illustrate precept by example.

In Opus tertium he wrote of "authority unworthy and
fragile, the rule of routine, the stupidity of the common herd,
the self-love of learned men who hide their ignorance under
spread of apparent knowledge". (Chapter XXII.) These
keep the world plunged in darkness and his works are des-
tined to chastise them.

In the Opus majus he points out how, whilst respecting
ancient writers, one must be willing to recognize the faults
of the great, such as Aristotle and the Arabian philosophers.

In the Compendium theologiae he declared, "It is a wretched
argument that is supported by custom and tradition. " (Part I,
Chapter 2.) Likewise in Opus majus he shows that where
such arguments prevail "reason loses its way, judgment is
perverted' '.

In addition to these words of wisdom, the following results

1 Quotations by Charles from original manuscripts.

57

38 ROGER BACON

are, according to Bacon, due to a too close adherence to the
dictates of the past. "Laws are violated, good disappears,
nature loses her authority; thus the face of things is over-
turned, order is confounded, vice triumphant, virtue extin-
guished, error reigns and truth vanishes. "

The above passage will be found on page 3, and on page 6
he goes on to say that great men of all time have avoided the
crowd a crowd did not witness Christ's transfiguration
and after hearing the teachings of Jesus over a period of years,
the multitude was ready to cry " Crucify Him!"

This hatred of the crowd was part of Bacon's character,
and when as an old man, after years of imprisonment, he
again took up his pen, he still was unprepared to cast the
pearls of his sagacity before the unheeding mass of mankind.

Another object of Bacon's ire was the incorrect translation
of ancient authors, and he even went so far as to assert that it
would have been better for Aristotle not to have been trans-
lated at all, rather than in such a manner as to be disfigured
by obscurity and error. He referred to his friend Robert of
Lincoln who, despairing of the translation of Aristotle's works,
had sought other sources and the better way of experiment.

In the Compendium philosophiae Bacon stated that if he
had to dispose of the works of Aristotle, he would burn them
rather than waste time over renderings which were likely
to engender falsehood, and propagate erroneous ideas.
(Part I, MS. in British Museum.)

Bacon's anger flamed up against certain personalities, par-
ticularly against one probably Alexander of Hales, who had
become a Franciscan and whose Summa theologiae (Contents
of theology) he affirmed to be full of mistakes. He was also
far from sparing Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, main-
taining that, "All the moderns, with some exceptions, despise
the sciences, and above all the new theologians, the chiefs of
the Minors and of the Preachers, who console themselves for
their ignorance and display their vanities before the eyes of
the imbecile multitude."

Bacon was convinced that the whole scholastic system was

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 39

bad, that another was needed, and that other was experience
as opposed to scholasticism, by which he meant the transla-
tion and adaptation of classical works, so that they might con-
form to the doctrines of the Church.

Charles points out that Bacon was the first to call the natural
sciences experimental sciences. "There are", cried Bacon,
"only two ways to arrive at knowledge experience (through
personal experiment) and reason". (Opus majus, p. 199.)

When, however, Bacon wrote of "interior illumination,
divine inspiration" he may, as Charles suggests, have been
thinking of what he termed the "active intelligence"
(V intellect agent), rather than of mysticism. His general
meaning seems to be that experience, to be perfect, must be
based on virtue, that the evil man is ignorant, and that
morality is the condition of knowledge, as virtue should be
its results.

The prejudice against anything claiming to be super-
normal expresses itself in Charles's criticism of Bacon's
references to alchemical phenomena. He indicates that Bacon
did not always remain true to this precept and sometimes
attributed to experiment too great a power, as in his belief
in elixirs and transmutations.

In the age in which he lived "the admirable doctor's" con-
sidered opinion was that grammar was the most useful of the
sciences, and he urged its study in conjunction with that of
languages, besides Latin; for example, Greek, Hebrew,
Arabic and Chaldean. He quoted, for instance, Robert
Grosseteste, one-time Bishop of Lincoln, who, having funds
at his disposal, invented instruments and examined rare and
precious works. Then he cited his own example of having
learned four languages, in the hope that good results might
follow; trade between nations; the conversion of pagan
peoples to Christianity; the establishment of friendly inter-
course with the Greek Church.

Brother Roger argued that if his pupil John could become
learned in a short time, what could not a mature scholar
perform in this way? He believed that knowledge should pro-

40 ROGER BACON

ceed from the general to the particular; that books should be
divided into preliminaries, which he called communia\
sections, which he called distinctions, and subdivided into
chapters. He likewise laid down rules for composition, and
he urged the study of ancient writers who have attained by
the light of reason only. These men have not despised mathe-
matics. Mathematics must be included with grammar in
the work of regeneration, since various branches of science
serve to support each other. Some are purely speculative;
geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, acoustics, each corresponds
with a practical science, since the knowledge of lines, surfaces
and solids ensures the well-being of humanity, in agriculture
and all constructive occupations, from house-building to
scientific instrument-making.

Bacon was the first to understand and to point out the
application of mathematics to physical sciences . ' ' Physicians ' ' ,
he repeatedly declares, "must know that their science is
impotent if they do not apply to it the power of mathematics".

He considered metaphysics a speculative science; morality
is practical and the queen of sciences. With great boldness
Bacon asserted the superiority of the pagan world to that of
the Christian world, which he knew, and he insisted on pro-
claiming, "There is no great moral or religious truth con-
cerning God and the soul which the ancient philosophers
had not perceived".

In the thirteenth century strife was beginning between
civil rights and canonical law, 1 and Bacon's defence of the
latter against the jurists found expression in the Compendium
philosophiae in which he showed that civil right concerns
temporal princes and the laity.

The first chapter of the Tertium begins :

"To neglect knowledge is to neglect virtue; the intellect
lightened by the flame of goodness cannot help but love

1 " Canon Law is the sum of the laws which regulate the ecclesiastical
body: for this reason it is also called ecclesiastical law." Encyclo-
pcedia Britannica, eleventh edition.

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 41

it. Love is only born of knowledge. Reason is the guide
of a right will. It is reason which leads us to salvation.
The true and the good are one; in order to do good one
must know it; in order to avoid evil one must discern it;
ignorance is the mother of sin; the man surrounded by
darkness throws himself into evil as a blind man into a
ditch; the enlightened man, on the contrary, may neglect
his duty but his conscience returns to repentance and to
right ideas."

It was from a sense of duty to the Church and to truth
that Bacon denounced the ignorance and vanity of the great
doctors. 1

Bacon defended as much as he accused. In the Opus
tertium, Chapter XVII, he explained that:

"From my youth I have worked at languages and at all
sciences of which I speak; I have welcomed all that
could serve my aim, and I have got into touch with all
people who could help me; I have sought the friendship
of the Latin sages; I have instructed young people in
languages, calculation, drawing and the art of con-
structing instruments and other necessary knowledge.
I have neglected nothing; I know how one must proceed,
with what aids, and against what obstacles. But lack of
resources stops me. If each one did as I do, one would
soon reach the good end; in twenty years I have spent
more than two thousand pounds."

1 Thorndike maintains, op. ci., 636, that Bacon's criticisms of the
powers that were, were borrowed from other sources such as the
writings of Adelard of Bath, and that they applied merely to the
previous "forty years". Further that they were levelled against the
state of affairs in France and England, and mainly at Paris and
Oxford. He apparently wrote little of Germany, Italy and Spain,
and Thorndike calls attention to the fact that Bacon did not mention
Alphonso X of Spain who was interested in occult science. He was,
according to this author, "jealous" of his contemporaries and eager
to obtain the help of the Pope in order that "I, poor fellow, may
gather the falling crumbs I need" (p. 642).

42 ROGER BACON

He also occupied himself with the early teaching of
children, objecting as he did to the bad Latin verses in which
the Scriptures and the Metamorphoses of Ovid had been
presented to them. He taught that education should be
undertaken by those who recognize its advantages. He
would not banish from education the fruits of pagan anti-
quity, praising Seneca whom he greatly admired, and who
had a marked influence on his genius.

The greatest discovery of Roger Bacon (according to
Charles) was that of the weaknesses and faults of scholastic-
ism. Among these defects were lack of observation, intermin-
able discussions on idle or insoluble questions, discredit of
certain sciences, forgetfulness of the great monuments of
antiquity, and the unsatisfactory translations of the classics.

If Bacon did not separate theology and philosophy, it was
because he viewed them as interdependent studies forming
an alliance. He regarded them as two separate rays of the
same brilliance, and he saw a revealed truth wherever a
great philosopher has spoken.

In order to dissociate himself from the scholastic thinkers
of his century, Bacon's original mind appears to have
instigated the notion that he would belong as little as possible
to that century. He was the first to pronounce the word
"experiment" a word necessary to the investigations of
those very sciences, chemistry and alchemy, condemned by
the schoolmen. He felt that through lack of personal initia-
tive and experience, and through reliance on authority, there
had arisen stagnation and the suppression of original thought.
Consequently his message was that "Wisdom is dead; the
demon has spread his shadows over the world".

Consequently also he emphasized the necessity of teaching
to children all the knowledge of the most renowned
philosophers.

Charles attributes the revival of scholasticism largely to the
knowledge of Aristotle, and of the Arabian doctors, to whom
Bacon owed so much.

It is not possible here to trace the intricacies and ramifica-

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 45

tions of scholastic arguments. Suffice it to say that they
related to such questions as the nature of substance and to
whether the matter of which a thing is composed, or its form,
makes it the thing it is. For instance, does a sphere of brass
owe its nomenclature to the material of which it is made, or
to the shape (form) in which it exists?

Bacon opposed with strength the notion of the infinity and
eternity of matter, which would make matter equal to God,
" which is absurd".

Another problem of the schools related to the force which
determines the union of matter and form. The answer was in
some cases "movement", in others "generation".

If it be true, as Charles affirms, that Bacon believed that
privation, 1 that is absence of qualities, is the essence of
matter, he may have been nearer the facts than is generally
supposed, in view of the modern scientific statements as to
atoms and electrons.

A further question concerned the general and the particu-
lar, and whether the universal or the individual is the more
important. Charles claims that Bacon took up a mean
position between the two extremes of realism and
nominalism. 2

Discussions took place with regard to the vegetative, sensi-
tive and intelligent soul of man, and it appears that Bacon
attributed man's possession of the latter i.e. reason to
the immediate action of God. In his belief in active intelli-
gence, Bacon followed Aristotle and Averroes, maintaining

1 Dr. Franz Hartmann, quoting H. P. Blavatsky, states that the
Yliaster of Paracelsus corresponds with the Ev of Pythagoras, and
that Aristotle was the first to speak of the form in potentia before it
can appear in actu the former being known as "the privation of
matter". See Dr. Hartmann's Life of Paracelsus, Second edition,
London. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd. 1887.
8 Nominalism was the doctrine that general terms have no corres-
ponding reality, either in or out of the mind, being mere words
(Chambers^ Twentieth Century Dictionary, London). Nominalism was
opposed to Realism, which was the medieval doctrine that general
terms stand for real existences.

44 ROGER BACON

that Robert of Lincoln, Adam Marsh, and "all great clerks in
the world" hold this opinion. (Opus tertium, Introduction,
Chapter XXXIII, MS. London.)

For Bacon, morality found a place amongst the sciences,
and he termed it u the best and most noble of them all".
(Communia naturalium, Chapter I.) For him "the moral act
alone renders us good or bad; it alone is concerned with
virtue and honour" and to him "theology and morality have
the same object although their methods may be different".
(Opus tertium, Chapter XIV.)

In a fine passage on p. 98 of his Life of Bacon, Charles
points out the greatness of Roger Bacon in the following
directions. "There is no great merit in our day in discovering
the weakness hiding behind apparent grandeur . . . but such
discernment was less easy to a contemporary [of the events
of which he treated] to be witness of a great movement
without applauding it, to be brought up with certain ideas
and to reprove them, to resist contagion by living in the
remembrance of ancient good, or by bold predictions of the
centuries to come; all this could not be the achievement of a
mediocre mind, nor of a feeble character; and above all [it
should be remembered that] the accusations that for three
centuries have been raised against scholasticism, were mur-
mured for the first time in the silence of a cloister, by a
doctor of the schools, by a monk clothed in the robe of St.
Francis, by a philosopher who was a contemporary of Albert
and of St. Thomas: his protest remains in its entirety, and
the anger of his enemies has not been able to obliterate
them. . . . With one hand he has tried to overthrow the
ancient edifice; with the other, he has traced the design of a
new monument".

According to Charles, another merit of Bacon is in having
been one of the founders of sacred criticism. His works
swarm with dissertations on the origin of the versions of the
holy books, and the translations employed by the church.
Bacon respected greatly St. Jerome, considering his transla-
tion better than all other Greek or Latin versions, of which,

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 45

therefore, a revised translation should be made. "The
ancient Bibles in monasteries have been spared and have not
received glosses; they contain unaltered the translation that
the Holy Roman Church has adopted, and which was laid
upon all the churches, but the copy which is in Paris resembles
them in nothing; one must then correct it so as to conform
to the ancient texts.'' (Opus tertium, Chapter XXV, cf.
Opus minus, p. 49.)

Regarding astronomy, Charles alleges that Bacon made
himself the historian of previous systems, before deciding his
own position as to the movements of the heavenly bodies.
Among these were Ptolemy, and Arzacher, the author of the
Tables of Toledo?- and the imitator of his predecessor whom
Charles names Thebit, 2 and finally Alpetragius.

Writing of scholastic physics, Charles records that Bacon
claimed to have invented a science of which most scientists
were ignorant, and which he found difficult to name, terming
it eventually "the multiplication of species". 3 No one taught
him this at Paris, and without it (he claimed) one can know
nothing of nature. It treated of the action of all natural
forces, below as in the spheres above, being the first and
a remarkable attempt to formulate a true science of physics.

The essay is incomplete and obscure and not without mis-
takes, so that historians have deigned neither to read nor
understand it, though it must be considered one of the
incontestable glories of Bacon, which seems to justify his cry:

1 Thomdike ^ op. cz., 638, states that Bacon employed "the Toletan
astronomical tables of Arzachel", instead of the tables of 1252 called
Alphonsine after the monarch who in that year began to reign.

2 THEBIT BEN CORAT was born about A.D. 856 in Mesopotamia, spent
much time at Baghdad, and died about A.D. 900. Thomdike, op. ci>.,
661, states that he wrote in Arabic and Syriac, but that he was not a
Mohammedan. He quotes Roger Bacon as having considered him
"the supreme philosopher among all Christians, who has added in
many respects, speculative as well as practical, to the work of
Ptolemy". Thorndike's reference is to Bridges, I, 394. Thomdike
states further, p. 665, that Thebit has been quoted by other writers
as an authority on images.

8 De multiplication* specierum.

46 ROGER BACON

"This science is worth a hundred times more than all they
know. Its greatness consists in the justice of its viewpoint,
and the conception of a great idea, into the laws and uni-
versality of phenomena."

Bacon did not neglect the study of plant life, believing that
plants possessed the power of inspiration and respiration, and
of waking and sleeping. He recognized the importance of
their different parts and wondered (like Professor Bose in
modern tunes) if vegetables had not some organ correspond-
ing to the heart in animal life.

Charles is of opinion that alchemy alone has contributed
more than all the sciences together to save the name of
Bacon from oblivion. All the adepts of the Great Work
count him as one of those who have performed transmutation,
and arrived at the perfection of this art, so rarely attained.
One has only to open libraries of alchemy to find the name
of Bacon at the head of works dealing with this subject, and
his Mirror of Alchemy has been through many editions.

According to Charles, the art of alchemy consists in finding
the way to purify metals, and this is done by an elixir of
which Bacon gives the composition, although after describing
the vessel, the furnace and the colours of the liquid projec-
tion, he seems to have forgotten to tell us exactly what it is
composed of.

Historians attribute to Bacon the discovery of phosphorus,
manganese, bismuth, the properties of antimony, as well as a
number of works to be found by consulting the library of
Pierre Borel. Bacon claimed that only three men in the
world knew practical alchemy and that one scientist alone
was fully acquainted with all these questions; doubtless a
reference to Master Peter.

The composition of gunpowder is often mentioned in
Bacon's works but things of greater human interest are con-
tained in a little treatise which has often been printed under
different titles, the object of which is to show the power of
human thought in directing the forces of nature. In the
larger treatise entitled De communibus mathematicae the

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 47

same statements are found with the same strange admixture
of truth and error. Charles's comment upon it is that "It is a
dazzling picture, and one to confound modern science which
believes itself born yesterday".

Among these marvels are flying machines and an object of
the length of three fingers, and of an equal height, which
instrument was used to raise or lower incredible weights
without fatigue; also an apparatus for walking at the bottom
of the sea and rivers without danger; instruments for swim-
ming and resting on the water; bridges over rivers, without
columns and without piles, and other similar wonders.

Charles quotes Bacon as writing of the flying machine,
"I have not seen it. I know no one who has seen it, but T
know perfectly the wise man who has invented this pro-
cedure." He added that the invention which permitted one
to descend into the depths of the waters had been used by
Alexander the Great, 1 and that the carriages which could roll
along without horses had been used by the ancients. (De
mirabili, p. 42.)

One must award to Bacon a knowledge of attraction (see
Charles, p. 305) and in the Opus ma/us, Part VI, Bacon
described an experiment as easy, having himself performed
it. "Cut a branch (or twig) of hazel in two; separate the two
ends, and you will soon feel the two isolated parts stretching
themselves out to approach one another; you will perceive
the effort that they make." His achievements are summed
up by Charles in these words: "He has discovered a fact more
important than a property of nature . . . that is to say a
method." He added that regarding what he considers

1 Thorndike, op. ciY., twice mentions the reference by Bacon to
Alexander's attempt to explore ocean depths as related by Ethicus.
(De natura rerum, II, 23.) In a footnote he describes a thirteenth-
century manuscript (GU Trinity 1446, A.D. 1250, fol. 271). Coment
Alisandre vesqui sur les ewes) in which are three representations of the
"submarine". One depicts Alexander with three men in a vessel
under the water; in another he is shown with two men, the water
containing a mermaid and fish, while in the third the ship is seen
without visible passengers. See pp. 263, 655.

48 ROGER BACON

Bacon's many mistakes, "he was the victim of his own
qualities . . . Bacon becomes credulous through science, and
is led into error through his very passion for truth".

The greatest genius of the thirteenth century, "Bacon was
prepared to reform the science of his time, by studying its
sources, and as he desired to hasten future progress, he did
not disdain the lessons of the past".

From the philosophers of the Middle Ages, Bacon quoted
few names and few works; rather had he criticism for Anselm,
Hugh and Richard of St. Victor, Peter Lombard, Alexander
of Hales, Albert the Great and Richard of Cornwall. He
mentions a Master Hugo 1 who introduced into the learning
of the day a work called The Second Analytics.

Of the many Johns who were living at the time, Jean de
Garlande was a grammarian. Charles also makes the point
that when Bacon speaks of a science, he sets himself the task
of relating its history and of the men and of their works
connected with it, and it is thus that Jean de Garlande and
Alexander Necquam are honoured for their knowledge of
grammar.

Among the many mathematicians mentioned by Bacon
was the Venerable Bede, whilst among the masters of anti-
quity occurs the name of the famous alchemist Trismegistus.

The Elements of Euclid had been translated by Bacon's
compatriot Adelard, whose work he cites.

A long passage from the Opus minus, quoted by Charles on
page 51, shows the spirit of Bacon bursting forth in indigna-
tion against the general corruption of his day. 2

"One finds it in every town, in every village, in every
camp; but at the same time there is a corruption and a
debasement of character which renders all efforts futile.
Let us consider all ranks of society, and we shall find

1 In a footnote, Charles informs us that "authors speak little of this
person".

2 See also the views of Adelard of Bath as quoted by Thorndike,
op. cit., 22.

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 49

everywhere an infinite corruption beginning with the
highest level. For in the court at Rome, where formerly
reigned, as it should, the wisdom of God Himself, the
right of the laity now prevails, thanks to the constitution
of the emperors that right which is based on civil law
and should regulate laymen only. So this Holy Seat is a
prey to crime and falsehood, justice perishes there,
peace there is violated, pride reigns there, avarice burns
there, greed there corrupts morals, envy gnaws all
hearts and luxury there dishonours the whole papal
court, and this is not enough: the vicar of God must be
disowned by the indifference of his church, so that the
world is left without guidance, with the result that for
many years the Holy Seat remains empty, thanks to the
efforts of jealousy and ambition! The priests, in their
turn consider how eager they are to enrich them-
selves indifferent to the care of souls, busy in promoting
their nephews, their friends according to the flesh, or
even lawyers -whose counsels overturn the world. As
for those who pass their lives studying philosophy and
theology, the priests cover them with contempt; they
take from them all liberty and prevent them from acting
for the salvation of souls. The monks, in their turn, are
no better and I exempt no Order, null ordinem exclude.
See indeed how far they are from the spirit of their
institutions, how much the new Orders have lost by
terrible attacks their primitive dignity! This body of
clerks is a prey to pride, luxury, avarice; everywhere
where they are numerous as in Paris and Oxford, they
scandalize the ordinary people by their arguments,
turbulence and all other vices. ... As for us Christians,
we make no discovery; we do not understand even the
wisdom of the ancients ; the corruption of manners and
of studies are jointly responsible; man is in science what
he is in life . . . the corruption of the clergy is the
origin of the ignorance of men." (Opus minus. Cotton
Library, Chapter I, p. 121.)
D

50 ROGER BACON

A passage in the Opus minus throws light upon Bacon's
idea whereby this universal corruption should be overcome.
"God has already chastised his church; now it is necessary
that a great pope aided by a great prince the sword of Mars
united with a spiritual sword should purge the church, or
else she will be punished by Anti-Christ; by some violent
revolution, by the discord of Christian princes, by the Tartars,
the Saracens or the kings of the East." (Opus minus, Cotton
Library, Chapter I, i, 121.)

IV Life at Oxford in the
Time of Bacon

WE are indebted to Andrew G. Little 1 in his The Grey
Friars in Oxford for some idea of the University life in the
thirteenth century.

The first Provincial of England "said to have been
appointed by St. Francis in 1219" had been custodian in Paris
and was named Agnellus. He probably arrived in England
about September 1224, when a deacon of thirty years of age.
He landed at Dover and proceeded to Oxford where he
upheld the primitive poverty of the Rule, only permitting
houses to be built where this was an absolute necessity.

Agnellus rendered the greatest service to his Order the
Franciscans by persuading Robert Grosseteste, the foremost
scholar of the time, to accept the post of Lecturer to the
Friars. He resided in Oxford, 1234, and gave up his lecture-
ship to become Bishop of Lincoln in 1235. His successor was
Master Peter. (See Appendix III, p. 122.)

All these men were seculars, not friars. It was important
"at a time when", as Roger Bacon said, "the Order of Minors
was new and neglected by the world, to secure the service
of men of recognized position and ability".

Grosseteste, in lecturing to the Franciscans, may have
employed the method of using the Old and New Testaments
as the foundation of their doctrines, and this enables us to
understand why Bacon lamented the exaggerated respect
which was paid to the "Sentences" 2 in his day and pointed

1 Andrew G. Little, M.A., The Grey Friars in Oxford. (Oxford.
Clarendon Press. 1892.)

2 This was the name given to the principal work of Peter Lombard
[circa 11001164] Bishop of Paris, consisting of a discussion of points

51

52 ROGER BACON

out that the learned men of the period, such as Robert,
Bishop of Lincoln and Friar de Marisco, used only the text
which was given to the world from the mouth of God and
of the Saints. (Opera inedita, 329.)

We are informed by Little that the Rules of the two
Orders Franciscans and Dominicans forbade their mem-
bers to take a degree in Arts, which statement he bases upon
Bacon's own writings. (Opera inedita, 426.)

The custom of the University, on the other hand, required
that the student of theology should have graduated in Arts,
which custom produced a feeling of inferiority in the
members of the Orders, so that the issue was raised in 1253
and has been described by Adam Marsh. The immediate
question was that of the appointment of Friar Thomas of
York to the position of "Regent 1 in Holy Scripture' '.
Objection was raised that he had not graduated in Arts. This
objection was overruled in his case, but it was decreed by
statute that no one should seek such "a grace" through the
influence of powerful patrons, becoming by this means a
so-called "Wax-doctor", from the "wax" used by lords to
seal their letters. Thus the friars were obliged to take pre-
liminary training before they could hope to "incept in
theology".

Roger Bacon wrote on this subject in 1271 :

"During the last forty years there have arisen some in
the universities (in studio) who have made themselves
doctors and masters of theology and philosophy, though
they have never learnt anything of any value. . . . They

of Christian doctrine expressed as objection and reply. Peter was
called Magister sentiarium, that is, the Master of Sentences. This
work was the subject of a commentary in three volumes by Albertus
Magnus.

1 Regent Masters appear originally to have been those who for two
years after their degree held a school in Grammar, or any other
Faculty at Oxford. The house where they met was called the
Regents' House. (See Adolphus William Ward, Litt.D., Old English
Drama, fourth edition. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1921. First
edition. 1879. Impression of 1927.)

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 53

are boys, inexperienced in themselves, in the world, in
the learned languages, Greek and Hebrew. . . . They are
ignorant of all parts and sciences, of mundane philosophy,
when they venture on the study of theology, which
demands all human wisdom. . . . They are the boys of
the two student Orders like Albert and Thomas, and
others who enter the Orders when they are twenty years
old or less. . . . Many thousands enter who cannot read
the Psalter . . . and immediately after making their
profession, they are set to study theology . . . and so it
was right that they should make no progress, especially
when they did not procure instructors for themselves
in philosophy from others after they entered the Order.
And most of all because they have presumed in the
Orders to investigate philosophy themselves without a
teacher so that they have become masters in theology
and philosophy before they were disciples therefore
infinite error reigns among them." 1

Little points out that friars were practical workers and
that Bacon shows this in his writings, p. 65. " Before all, the
utility of everything must be considered, for this utility is
the end for which the thing exists. . . . The utility of
philosophy is in its bearing on theology and the church and
state and the conversion of infidels and the reprobation of
those who cannot be converted. . . .

"The end of all sciences and their mistress and queen, is
moral philosophy, for this alone teaches the good of the soul."
(Opera inedita, pp. 19, 20.)

Little further indicates that the Franciscans made use of
their philosophy in everyday life. He quotes Bacon as saying,
"It is the first step in wisdom to have regard to the persons
to whom one speaks. . . . (Opera inedita , Ivi.) He goes on
to cite Brewer 2 that the brethren followed Roger's advice,

1 Little, op. cit., 42 (Opera inedita, pp. Iv and 399).

2 Professor John Sherren Brewer [1810-1879] edited, as the result
of his work in the Record Office, the Monumenta Franciscana, 1858,
and the works of Roger Bacon, 1859.

54 ROGER BACON

"their sermons being fall of fitting stories and racy anec-
dotes with mention of popular tradition and legend and
illustrated by allegory or fable".

In Paris Bacon lectured to Spanish students who are said
to have laughed at his discourses. (See Little, op. cit., 66.)

Bacon's statement in Opera inedita, p. 12, that "he could
only get a fair copy of his works made for the Pope by writers
unconnected with the Order " meant, according to Little,
that there were no professional scribes among the Minorites
of Paris (p. 86).

It was often the custom for friars to resort to begging to
obtain the necessary means for their studies. Writing to the
Pope, Bacon complained:

"But how often I was looked upon as a dishonest beggar,
how often I was repulsed, how often put off with empty
hopes, what confusion I suffered within myself, I cannot
express to you. . . . Even my friends did not believe me
as I could not explain the matter to them; so I could
not proceed hi this way. Reduced to the last extremities,
I compelled my poor friends to contribute all that they
had and to sell many things and to pawn the rest, often
at usury and I promised them that I would send to you
all the details of the expenses and would faithfully
procure full payment at your hands. And yet owing to
their poverty I frequently abandoned the work; fre-
quently I gave it up in despair and forbore to proceed;
. . ." (pp. 91, 92).

Little suggests that the "amici" (friends) were "poor
students of the common people (so-called)" and he adds in a
footnote that complaint was made that the friars "devour
poor men's alms hi waste, and feasting of Lordes and great
men" (p. 92).

Of Bacon's friend, Adam Marsh, Little relates the follow-
ing facts: Born in the diocese of Bath, he studied at Oxford
under Grosseteste, who had been interested in him from an
early stage of his life. Bacon called Grosseteste Adam's

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 55

"master". (Opera inedita, 167.) Adam's uncle Richard,
Bishop of Durham, appointed the nephew to a living near
Wearmouth, and in 1226 left him his library. By this time
Adam was probably a Master of Arts, but soon after he gave
up "all worldly greatness and a large income", to become a
Franciscan at Worcester, "through zeal for greater poverty".
From here, he went with St. Anthony of Padua to the
University of Vercelli; and may have returned to Oxford to
attend Grosseteste's lectures to the friars. He became one of
the greatest of the Minorites and a leading light of the Church,
and in 1203 Grosseteste bequeathed to him his library. His
most famous pupil was Roger Bacon, who declared him to
be "perfect in all wisdom". (See Little, pp. 134-9.)

Amoury de Montfort was papal chaplain and Treasurer of
York. In his will one -third of his bequest was to be divided
into six parts; this sixth was to be subdivided into three, one
of which was to go to the Friar Preachers of Oxford, Leicester
and other places (pp. 102-3).

Little denies that Bacon's pupil, John, was either John of
London or John Peckham. He was "a virgin, not knowing
mortal sin, and an excellent keeper of secrets". (Opera
inedita, 62.)

Little quotes in full in a note (p. 73) Bacon's opinion of
Thomas Aquinas. "Truly I praise him more than all the
crowd of students, because he is a very studious man and has
seen infinite things and had experience; and so he has been
able to collect much that is useful from the sea of authors."
However he was handicapped by not going through the
regular training (p. 327). His followers maintain that
philosophy as published in his works is complete. "These
writings", Bacon continues, "have four sins; the first is
infinite puerile vanity; the second is ineffable fatuity; the
third superfluity of volume . . . the fourth is that part of
philosophy of magnificent utility and immense beauty and
without which facts of common knowledge cannot be under-
stood concerning which I write to your glory have been
omitted by the author of these works, and therefore there is

56 ROGER BACON

no utility in these writings, but the greatest injury to
wisdom."

Thus the "unnamed professor at Paris" referred to by
Roger Bacon, has been identified by Dean Plumptre with
Aquinas. (Contemporary Review, II, 375.)

Another contemporary whose errors Bacon condemned in
1292 was Richard Rufus, of Cornwall, a master, probably
of Arts, who was a Minorite at Paris. Adam Marsh appears
to have been less hard on this friar.

Little, in this connection, charges Charles with inaccuracy,
as also the Royal Manuscript in the British Museum.
(7F. vii folio 81.)

Little asserted that "very little" is known of Thomas de
Bungay, of Suffolk, regarded later as a conjurer. He may
have entered the Order at Norwich and was lecturing as
Doctor of Divinity in a Franciscan convent at Oxford about
1270. He appears to have stressed the importance of
mathematics, which view Bacon shared. He also lectured to
the Franciscans of Cambridge and was the eighth Provincial
Minister, being succeeded by Peckham. "According to the
catalogue of illustrious Franciscans he wrote a Commentary
on the Sentences" Only one of his works appears to have
been printed, but Little compares the MS. Caius College,
Cambridge (509, paragraph 3, section xiv ineuntis) with a
MS. in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris (1644, sec. xiii,
p. 240).

Little quotes Charles in a footnote to page 215 in treating
of William de la Mare or de Mara a disciple of Bonaventura
that "the serious part of his work seems directly inspired
by Bacon". Little adds that no doubt William de Lamarre,
as Charles termed him, "had come. under Bacon's influence
either at Oxford or Paris".

The work in question, taking the form of an anti- Aquinas
criticism, was published in 1284.

An astronomer, by name John Soomer, from the convent at
Bridgwater, was at Oxford in 1380. It is said that he "made
use of the astronomical researches of Bacon", and Little

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 57

compares his reference to the corruption of the Calendar to
Roger Bacon's Opera inedita (p. 272).

In the biographical notice of Bacon in Little's The Grey
Friars in Oxford it is first of all stated that the authority for
Bacon's birth at Ilchester was John Rous. (Ilchester is said
erroneously to be in Dorsetshire.)

Since boys of ten or twelve years often began their studies
at Oxford, Bacon may have been sent there early. We are
told that both Gross eteste and Aquinas understood and sym-
pathized with the ''experimental method". Bacon wrote,
"When I was in another state I wrote nothing on philosophy.
Men used to wonder before I became a friar that I lived owing
to such excessive labour." (Opera inedita, pp. 13, 65.)

It was in the same work and page (65) that Bacon had
written, "I have laboured much at sciences and languages,
and it is now forty years since I first learned the alphabet;
and I was always studious ; and except for two of those forty
years I have always been in studio."

By 1267 Roger had spent "more than 2000 librae on
secret books and various experiments and languages and
instruments and tables". (Opera inedita.)

In the same work (p. 325) Bacon relates that he had seen
Alexander of Hales with his own eyes, and had heard
William of Auvergne "dispute before the whole University".
(1750 edition of the Opus ma jus.)

The 1750 edition of the Opus majus, p. 190, contains
Bacon's statement that he saw the chief of the Pastoureaux
and noticed that "he carried in his hand something as though
it were sacred, as a man carries relics".

Rous in Hist. Reg. Ang., p. 82, states that Roger Bacon
became Doctor of Divinity in Paris and incorporated Doctor
of Divinity at Oxford.

It was the clerk Rmond de Laon who mentioned the
name of the imprisoned friar to the Cardinal Bishop of
Sabina, afterwards Pope Clement IV.

Little shows that Clement's supposition that Bacon's great
works were already written was incorrect, and quotes Bacon

58 ROGER BACON

as writing in Opera inedita, p. 13, " Whilst I was in a different
state of life, I had written nothing on science; nor in my
present condition had I ever been required to do so by my
superiors; nay, a strict prohibition has been passed to the
contrary, under penalty of forfeiture of the book, and many
days fasting on bread and water, if any book written by us
(i.e. the Franciscans) should be communicated to strangers.**

Little supplies in a footnote the information that this
statute was passed in 1260 at the General Chapter at Nar-
bonne, and that the fast lasted three days (p. 192).

Bacon wrote further of his brethren and superiors that they
"kept me on bread and water suffering no one to have access
to me, fearful lest my writings should be divulged to any
other than the Pope and themselves'*. (Opera inedita,
p. xciv from Wood's Antiquitates (said to be taken from the
Opus minus.})

John Rous was the authority for the statement that Bacon
was buried among the Friars Minor at Oxford. In Royal
MS. 126, folio 152, on the death day of Roger Bacon, said to
have been 11 June, the Feast or Festival of St. Barnabas,
John Twyne recorded that the friars fastened all Bacon's
works with long nails to the shelves of their library and left
them there to rot.

Little quotes the historian Leland as remarking that, "it is
easier to copy the leaves of the Sybil than the titles of the
works written by Roger Bacon".

Little says that they were regarded with a pious horror in
the Middle Ages. Earliest MS. 1263-4, Computus naturaliwn.
He also states that a Calendar has been wrongly attributed to
Bacon, having been made by a Minorite at Toledo in 1297
and taken from the Tabulae Toletanae, p. 209.

A lecturer to the friars whom Bacon ranked among "the
wise men of old" (Opera inedita, 88) was Master Thomas
Wallensis, who studied foreign languages and knew the
value of philology. He became Bishop of St. David's in 1247
out of a desire to help his countrymen.

The author of The Grey Friars has given us some idea of

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 59

their lives at Oxford, the two first having arrived in 1224.
At first the Rule of St. Francis was kept strictly; the friars 1
quarters being poor and they themselves attired in a coarse
grey or brown robe more or less threadbare (as Grosseteste
loved to see them), and with bare feet, shoes being permitted
only to the infirm and old by special licence (p. 4). Pillows
were not allowed. Grosseteste advised the Minorites "to eat,
sleep and be merry' '.

Very soon the Franciscans became imbued with the desire
for learning, their lecturers being Regent Masters of the
University. The average number of friars living in the
convent of Oxford during the last quarter of the thirteenth
century, Little estimates to have been seventy or eighty.

He points out that although Brasenose College and Merton
College have claimed Roger Bacon as a student, this is
incorrect, as Merton was not founded till Bacon was quite
old, and Brasenose till two hundred years after his death.

V Philosopher and Scientist

"EVEN if a man should live for thousands of centuries in
this mortal condition, never would he attain to the perfection
of knowledge; he would not know to-day how to explain
colour, nature, the existence of a fly, and he himself finds
presumptuous doctors who believe they have achieved
philosophy. "

Thus wrote Bacon in his Computus naturalium. (First
part, Chapter II.) Writing to Pope Clement IV he explained
that some sciences may be taught openly, but he concludes
"as for others they are more secret; one must not reveal
them to the crowd who can make bad use of them". (Opus
tertium. Chapter I.)

Treating of Roger Bacon as an alchemist in The Gold-
makers^ the author, K. K. Doberer, ascribes to this philosopher
the confession that more "secrets of knowledge* ' had been
revealed to him by "plain and neglected men" than by
celebrated instructors (p. 45). Another claim of Bacon
referred to by the same writer, was that the attempts to make
gold had brought many "useful inventions ... to light"
(p. 46).

All lands of weird and wonderful discoveries have been
attributed to the monk of Oxford, but Charles will have none
of them, after explaining that he had searched the works in
vain, although animated with the keen desire to find them.
He could find no traces of telescopes, flying machines, or
other marvels often associated with the inventor's name, and
he points out that Bacon is great enough to do without such
novelties, references to which are based on obscure passages,
or which have accrued, like barnacles, to his reputation.

It is true that his work on Optics was considerable, and

60

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 61

there is a passage in the Opus majus which may be a mention
of gunpowder, not unknown at this period.

The author of the article on Alchemy hi the Encyclopedia
Britannica, eleventh edition, states that Roger Bacon, or
another of the same name, performed transmutation, but
there is no such admission in the biography of Charles,
whose tendency was to discredit unusual occurrences. He
states that Bacon's errors are many, and he attributes these
errors to his scientific ardour, which, we are informed,
involved him in illusions, especially alchemical and astro-
logical. 1

As an example of such an illusion, Charles affirms that
Bacon thought men aged and died prematurely, and he
believed in an electuary, into the composition of which there
entered potable gold, herbs, flowers, spermaceti, aloes and
the flesh of a serpent, which belief lowers the eminent
philosopher to the level of those who give marvellous recipes,
and of empirics, ignorant or fraudulent. He refers us to
page 472 of the Opus majus.

Charles devotes a chapter to Bacon's erudition and to the
sources whence it was derived. Besides Aristotle, Bacon owed
much to the Arab philosophers, Avicenna and Averroes. He
was ready to criticize them when it seemed necessary. An
author whom Bacon greatly admired was Seneca, whose
Sentences he often quoted. Seneca's love of science, respect
for reason, faith in progress and in the future, and his pre-

1 Thorndike, op. ci>., 256, records Bacon's appreciation of a treatise
on astrology De impressionibus caelestibus which was ascribed to
Aristotle and of which Bacon reported to Pope Clement IV that it
was "superior to the entire philosophy of the Latins and can be
translated by your order". (Bridges (1897), I, 589-90; Brewer
(1859), 473.) Another contemporary to whom Bacon made allusion
was Michael Scot, astrologer to the Emperor Frederick II, whose
dates are uncertain, but who was writing between 1198 and 1216.
According to Thorndike, Bacon regarded Michael as "a notable
inquirer into matter, motion and the course of the constellations"
and one who "understood neither sciences nor languages, not even
Latin". The reference is, in one case, to Brewer (1859), 91.

62 ROGER BACON

dilection for morality, appealed strongly to the thirteenth-
century philosopher.

After Seneca, he cites Cicero and other names of antiquity.
Named by him are Democritus, Xenophon, Empedocles, 1
Plato and others. Arabian philosophers cited are Algazel 2
and Alph-arabius. 3 It goes without saying that he was
acquainted with the philosophical thought of his day. The
translators of ancient works are severely blamed by Roger
Bacon for their ignorance and the bad quality of their
labours the transcription of ancient works into scholastic
versions.

The only exceptions are Boethius 4 and Robert of Lincoln.
Mathematicians known to Bacon were Hipparchus, 5 Archi-
medes, Ptolemy and Euclid. But he asked why Christians
should be so disdainful of this science, and so ignorant of the
works of antiquity. He reiterated his belief in the "profane
theology " of Greeks, Romans and Mohammedans, and in
the wisdom of paganism. He did not separate politics from
the sphere of morality and declared that the roots of morality
spring from metaphysics, which itself resembles theology in
its first principles, but has regard in its second part to man's
relations with his fellows, and the third part treats of man's
duties towards himself, in living an honest life, apart from
evil customs. In Bacon's own words, the fourth function of
morality is u to prepare man for clerical life according to the

1 A philosopher, physician and magician, who lived about 450 B.C.

1 ALGAZEL or GHAZZALI [958-1111], was a Mahommedan who taught

at Mecca, Jerusalem, Damascus and Alexandria. His three principal

works dealt with the opinions, the tendencies and destruction of the

philosophers.

8 ALPH-ARABIUS, A., was a philosopher of the Khirghiz steppes, born

near the River Oxus, who made many travels before he met his

death at Damascus.

4 BOETHIUS was a Roman philosopher, born circa A.D. 470, who knew

Greek and translated Aristotle, being also an authority on arithmetic,

astronomy, geometry and music.

6 HIPPARCHUS, [circa 160-125 B.C.] born at Nicaea, was a famous

astronomer who observed the heavens from the island of Rhodes.

It was he who formulated the length of the solar year.

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 65

light of reason". The fifth consists in preaching observation
of the practices and duties of true religion, while the sixth
deals with the administration of justice.

By Grammar, Bacon meant more than our word, including,
as it did, the origin of language and renewed search for the
original language. Bacon was also one of the founders of
criticism applied to the Scriptures, and his works swarm with
dissertations on the origin of the Holy Books and their
translations.

The only mathematical work extant is De communibus
mathematicae, which, as its title implies, contains only
general principles.

In his work on Mathematics, Roger Bacon says:

"Nobody can attain to proficiency in that science by the
method hitherto known, unless he devotes to the study
thirty or forty years, as is evident from the case of those
who have flourished in those departments of knowledge,
such as Lord Robert of holy memory, sometime Bishop
of Lincoln and Friar Adam Marsh, and Master John
Hendover, and the like, and that is the reason why so
few study that science." (See Francis Seymour Stevenson,
Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln. (London.
Macmillan & Co., Ltd. 1899, p. 51), and Opus tertium,
472. (Quoted from Wood, I, 82.))

On the same subject he says in the Opus majus that:

"There were found some famous men, such as Robert,
Bishop of Lincoln, and Adam Marsh and several others,
who were aware that the power of mathematics is
capable of unfolding the causes of all things, and of
giving a sufficient explanation of human and divine
phenomena; and the assurance of this fact is to be found
in the writings of those great men, as for instance in
their works on the rainbow and the comets, on the
generation of heat, on the investigation of geography,
on the sphere, and on the questions appertaining both

64 ROGER BACON

to theology and to natural theosophy." (P. 52, Opus
majus. Ed. Jebb, p. 64. Ed. Bridges, I, 108.)

There are remains of quite a considerable number of
Bacon 's works on Astronomy, of which De caelestibus is not
without interest. It appears that Bacon's ideas of the uni-
verse were not wholly those of Democritus, but he main-
tained that the universe is composed of separate bodies,
complete and capable of division, rather than of indivisible
atoms which are infinite in number. To the four elements
he added a fifth the sky.

With regard to Chronology, Bacon indicated that the
Hebrews knew only the lunar months, while the Arab
calculation is less than that of Bacon himself, which is
29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes. Most biographers agree that
Bacon was the first to have the idea of the reform of the
Calendar, 1 not realized till three centuries later, under the
papacy of Gregory XIII.

The Opus majus, Opus tertium and the Computus natural-
ium in the Bacon manuscripts, throw the most complete
light on this subject. Bacon realized that the actual Calendar
showed incorrectly the new moon, since in 76 years the new
moon advanced on the period fixed by the Calendar 6 hours,
40 minutes, so that at the end of 386 years there would be
an error of a whole day. This idea is discussed in Computus,
Opus majus, pp. 170-82, and in Opus tertium. Chapter LV.
The conclusion is that "A reform is then necessary. All
people educated in computation and astronomy know it and
ridicule the ignorance of the priests who maintain the actual
state [of the Calendar]. The infidel philosophers, Arabs and
Hebrews, Greeks who live amongst the Christians, as in
Spain and Egypt and other countries of the East and else-
where, are horrified at the stupidity shown by the Christians

1 Thorndike, op. cit., 444, considers the Computus of Grosseteste,
dealing, as it does, with Easter and other festivals, to have been a
work stressing the need of Calendar reform, which was later made
use of by Bacon.

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 65

in their chronology and celebration of their solemnities."
Then follows an appeal to the Pope to give the requisite
orders, so that a number of men might be appointed to
remedy these faults. Bacon felt that should this work be
accomplished "one would see one of the greatest enterprises
finished, the finest, best and most beautiful which has ever
been attempted in the Church of God".

Here is Bacon's statement with reference to yet another
science. "Geography, like chronology and astronomy, has
its roots in mathematics, since it would repose on the measure
and the figure of the inhabited earth."

The determination of longitude and latitude, remarked
Bacon, is so vast that only a pope or a king could accomplish
it. The influence of the climate upon the various regions
produces variations in production, character, etc., and this
factor must be included in the study comprised in Geography.
A long description of the earth may be read in the fourth
part of the Opus ma jus.

Bacon did not accept the idea of Pliny that at the poles
the climate was temperate; mathematical demonstration, he
thought, proved the contrary. He recognized that at the
poles the day lasts six months, as the solar rays are found
reflected on the polished surfaces of mountains of stone; at
certain times and in certain places it can be very warm
there.

To gain such knowledge, Bacon made enquiries every-
where, talked with travellers and investigated narratives.

In the realm of Physics Bacon was assured that the ebb and
flow of the tides had a connection with the lunar rays. He
refuted atomism by an appeal to Euclid; he concluded that
the form of the world is spherical.

It seems that Bacon was acquainted with the fact that the
rainbow is nothing by itself, but a reflection of rays across the
little drops of water in rainy clouds. He also had observed
that the same effect is produced by analogous phenomena
in the dew, in water raised by oars or by a water wheel and
in a crystal suitably cut. A very interesting allusion is to

66 ROGER RACON

"six-sided Scottish stones" which, if held directly in a beam
of sunlight, show all the colours of the rainbow.

The sciences which investigate the mysteries of nature
were not neglected by this indefatigable philosopher. He
attributed to the members of the vegetable kingdom the
so-called vegetative soul, and accorded to them inbreathing
and respiration. While noticing the sap and various parts
stem, roots and bark, he endeavoured to find the r6le which
leaves, flowers and fruit play in vegetation, and sought to
find the essential organ which took the place of the heart.
His theory regarding the propagation of certain creatures by
division seems not unlike the modern cellular theory, since
he attributes it to divisible parts of the creatures which are
to them complete in themselves. It is not surprising that he
accepted the idea of spontaneous generation in the putre-
faction of organized matter.

Alchemy has contributed more than all other sciences,
according to Charles, to save the name of Bacon from for get-
fulness, as have, in the opinion of the French biographer, all
the adepts of the Great Work who have performed trans-
mutation. Bacon's Mirror of Alchemy contains in seven
little paragraphs a manual of this art, which teaches how to
compose a certain medicine called Elixir, which, when it is
projected upon metals or imperfect bodies, makes them per-
fect at the moment of projection. The theory goes on to
explain what constitutes an imperfect metal. One must
know that all metals are composed of sulphur and mercury,
but these two elements are more or less pure, and are only
to be found without admixture in gold. All the art of alchemy
consists in purifying these metals by means of an elixir,
concerning which Bacon gives some of the details, describing
the vessel, the furnace, and the colours which the liquid of
projection presents.

Bacon called transmutation practical alchemy, the aim of
which is to perform useful work for the State or the individual.
Above this he placed speculative alchemy, the aim of which
is usually to study the formation of bodies, the combination

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 67

of elements, and the nature of animals and vegetables.

Referring to supposedly inanimate objects common
stones, precious stones, marbles, oils, etc., Bacon declared,
''There are not three men in the world who know the distinct
uses of these things in practical alchemy. One only is
instructed in all these questions, and as so few people can
understand him, he does not deign to communicate his
science to others, nor to associate with them, because he
regards them all as fools." (Opus tertium, Part I, Chapter 2.)
This candid gentleman may well be, as Charles surmises,
Master Peter. 1

In the same work, Chapter 5, Bacon cried, "In my
opinion, my ideas on these principles and on their application
to metals are worth more than the claim to know, of all the
physicians in the world."

According to the Speculum the Breve breviarum is to be
placed among the alchemical writings attributed to Roger
Bacon.

D. W. Singer 2 states that of the Breve breviarum only one
copy exists of fourteenth -century date the fifteenth-
century MSS. being usually extracts. "This is a practical
work in which observations and experiments are recorded
and explained. It contains extracts believed by Bacon to
form part of Aristotle's Memoirs, but are from a passage of
Avicenna, of which the translation of Alfred de Sareshull
became attached to the version of Book IV of the Memoirs,
made direct from the Greek."

Roger Bacon believed that the Secretum secretorum was
written by Aristotle for his pupil Alexander. Bacon also

1 This PETER is called Peter Peregrine by the author of The Gold-
makers, who states that he was a Franciscan, who, like Bacon, was
suspected of scientific practices disapproved by the brotherhood of
the Friars. He condemned blind faith, and taught that experiment
alone could bring knowledge of all natural things. (See also VII,
40, below.)

2 D. W. Singer, Alchemical Writings attributed to Roger Bacon. Notes.
(See Speculum, Journal of Medieval Studies, Vol. VII, 80. Medieval
Academy of America. Cambridge, Massachussetts. 1932.)

68 ROGER BACON

believed that the Emerald Table of Hermes described a
process of distillation and sublimation (p. 81).

Robert Steele, 1 writing of Bacon, advances the suggestion
that the thirteenth century was marked by the appearance
of encyclopaedias which attempted to summarize all extant
human knowledge, and he proffers such examples as those of
Albertus Magnus and Vincent of Beauvais, to which he
assigns a date between 1240 and 1264. This work, entitled
Imago mundi, comprised three sections, named respectively
Speculum naturale. Speculum doctrinale and Speculum
historiale, to which an addition was the Speculum morale.
Steele also makes mention of the encyclopaedia of Bartholo-
mew Anglicus, a Franciscan whose work was named Pro-
prietatibus rerum. His idea is that Bacon hoped to produce a
similar encyclopaedic record, of which certain of his existing
works are fragments. (See pp. 131-7.)

A second allusion occurs in Charles Singer's contribution
to the same volume, this latter article being entitled "Steps
leading to the invention of the First Optical Apparatus "
containing a reference to Roger Bacon as "the father of
microscopy' '. There is also a quotation from the Opus majus,
Part VII, and one from De secretis operibus describing how
"objects at a very great distance appear to be quite close at
hand and conversely". Thus "small letters may be read
from an incredible distance".

1 Robert Steele, Roger Bacon and the State of Science in the Thirteenth
Century. In Studies in the History and Method of Science, Edited by
Charles Singer. (Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1921.)

VI Roger Bacon in Tradition
and Legend

Our great Roger Bacon, by a degree of penetration
which, perhaps has never been equalled, discovered
some of the most occult secrets in Nature.

Isaac D'Israeli, The Book of Authors, 1.

NO account of Roger Bacon would be complete without
reference to the many traditional stories associated with his
name. These stories may be read in Volume I of Early Prose
Romances, edited with biographical and historical introduc-
tion by William J. Thorns, F.S.A.

In his preface to "Friar Bacon", Thorns recalls that since
"the tendency which has been shown by the generality of
mankind in all ages and countries is to estimate the capabilities
of the human mind by the limited powers which have been
allotted to themselves, we cannot be surprised that they
should endeavour to reduce the master-spirits of Genius and
Philosophy to their own level by attributing the superior
acquirements of such master-spirits to the influence of
demoniacal agency. . . ."

He went on to assert that "Among the many that have
been thus treated none has been more unjustly than Roger
Bacon, who in the three first chapters of the Epistle on the
Power of Art and Nature, expressly declares against magic,
unlawful books and spells.''

In the view of Thorns, the history of Friar Bacon, written
towards the end of the sixteenth century, assembled the
numerous stories current regarding the philosopher's extra-
ordinary powers.

In Thorns' opinion narratives concerning the Brazen Head
and the Perspective Glass are worthy of special consideration.

69

70 ROGER BACON

He stated that Butler associated "Bob Grostete of Lincoln
with Old Hodge 'Bacon* who has been thus commemorated:

"For of the grete Clerk Grostete
I rede how busy that he was
Upon the clergie, on the head of bras
To forge. "

(Volume II, 90 b. New edition of Gower, Confessio
AmantiS) Liber Quartus, edited by Dr. Pauli.)

We owe to William of Malmesbury in Dr. Giles' transla-
tion (Bonn's Antiquarian Library, p. 181), the record of the
brazen head made by Gerbert, Pope Sylvester II, called
"the Aquitanian".

It is said to have been cast, according to Thorns, "by a
certain inspection of the stars when the planets were about
to begin their courses". It did not speak unless addressed,
when it replied truthfully "yes" or "no". Thus the answer
to Gerbert's query "Shall I be Pope?" was in the affirmative,
while a negative reply was given to the question "Am I to
die ere I sing Mass at Jerusalem?" This "Jerusalem" appears to
have referred to a church at Rome called The Station of
Jerusalem, where the Pope sings Mass on three Sundays.

According to Yepes, a brazen head, made by Henry de
Villeine at Madrid, was shattered at the command of John II,
King of Castile, and the making of a brazen head has been
attributed also to Albert Magnus. In this connection Thorns
provides a footnote as follows: "Stow mentions a head of
earth made at Oxford by the art of necromancy in the reign
of Edward II, that, at the time appointed, spake these words:
'Caput decidetur* (the head shall be cut off); l Caput elevabitur*
(the head shall be lifted up) ; l Pedes elevabuntur supra capuC
(the feet shall be lifted above the head)."

Thorns also quotes an extract from Sir Thomas Browne's
Vulgar Errors, Book VII, Cap. 17. "Every ear is filled with
the story of Friar Bacon that made a Brazen Head to speak
these words 'Time is'."

The origin of the Perspective Glass is, according to

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 71

Thorns, the consequence of Bacon's skill in Optics, tradition
leading him to believe that the philosopher was the inventor
of the telescope. He states that the story of the three brethren
was borrowed from the Gesta Romanorum, being the forty-
fifth tale of the thirty-eighth folio, printed by Jehan Petit
at Paris in 1506, while the narrative relating to the conjuring
of Bacon's man, Miles, may have been taken from The
Friers of Berwick, the author of which has been named as
Dunbar, who died in 1525. This was printed in Piiikerton's
Scotch Poems, Vol. I, 65.

Dubravius, Hist. Bohem., records a contest similar to that
between Bacon, Bungay and Vandermast, and Thorns
informs us that the story was repeated by Flogel in Geschichte
der Hofmarren, Seite 214.

Of the many editions of the History of Friar Bacon, Thorns
states that the first was probably "printed in London by E.A.
for Francis Grove". E.A. may be the initials of Elizabeth
Alder, for whom the edition of Greene's play, The Honour-
able History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, was printed
in 1650. (Made by Robert Greene, Master of Arts, London.
Printed for Edward White, 1594.)

Thorns ends his preface with the hope that the learned
biographer of Jerome Cardan and Cornelius Agrippa may
produce a life of Roger Bacon the old English philosopher.

Here follows the title page as set forth in Early Prose
Romances, Volume I, of

THE FAMOUS HISTORIE

OF
FRYER BACON

containing
The wonderful things that he did in his life;

also the Manner of his Death.

with the lives and deaths of the two conjurers,

Bungye and Vandermast.

Very pleasant and delightful to read.

Printed at London by E.A. for Francis Grove and are to be sold
at his shop, at the upper end of Snow^Hill against the Saracen's Head,

72 ROGER BACON

Following upon the above title page, the first story relates
how the priest who was young Bacon's tutor, advised the
father to send his promising son to Oxford. The father, how-
ever, having intended Roger to follow in his own steps as a
farmer, presented him with a cart-whip in place of his books,
bade him "sow, reap, plough and sell graine and cattell".

Roger soon gave his father the slip, and continued his
study in a neighbouring "cloister".

The second relates the marvellous entertainment provided
by Friar Bacon for the king 1 and queen, 2 while the third
introduces the friar's man Miles, who was cured by his
master of his greed in eating a "black pudding" on a fast day.

The fourth tale reveals the astuteness of the friar in
rescuing a gentleman who had given himself to the Devil,
this astuteness causing much discomfort to the latter.

A fifth narrative concerns the Brazen Head, constructed
with immense skill and patience by Friars Bacon and Bungay,
in order that the Head might speak and enable Bacon to
"wall England about with Brasse" to prevent future con-
quests.

Having raised a spirit to advise them how to make the
Head speak, the friars, being very tired, instructed Miles to
wake them if the Brazen Head should utter speech, and fell
asleep.

The Head enunciated first the words "Time zV; on the
second occasion the words were "Time was"; and on the
third " Time is past", after which it fell down with noise and
fiery flashes, thus waking its constructors from slumber.
Much to their vexation, the friars heard from Miles the
account of his negligence.

The next and sixth amazing undertaking was the capture

1 King Henry III.

2 QUEEN ELEANOR OF PROVENCE. Grosseteste's biographer also
shows that Queen Eleanor of Provence exhibited much tact and
judgment and quotes a letter from the Bishop of Lincoln to the
Queen rejoicing in her "kindness, goodness and virtue" towards her
household. (Stevenson, op. ci>., 212.)

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 73

of a "towne" in France by the English king through means
of instruments which Friar Bacon caused to be erected on a
mound, after which the State house of the said town was set
on fire, with the result that the town was occupied, whilst its
denizens were trying to put out the conflagration.

The seventh story relates how, as a consequence of the
dkmency of the English monarch, the French ambassador
sought to entertain him after a banquet by the performances
of a German conjurer, Vandermast who raised the supposed
spirit of Pompey. Friar Bacon's reply was to raise Caesar,
who vanquished Pompey, after which Friar Bacon brought
the Hysperian Tree guarded by a dragon. Vandermast's
ghost of Hercules attempted to pluck the fruit of the tree, but
Bacon commanded the devil responsible for the impersona-
tion of Hercules to transport the German to his own country,
which done, the friar refused any monetary reward from
the king for his services.

The wisdom of the friar is reported in the eighth episode,
wherein he is said to have saved the endangered lives of three
brethren, sons of a gentleman who had bequeathed his land
and goods to the one who loved him most. This bequest led
to a combat, which was prevented by the friar, who caused
the father's dead body to be set up, so that the sons might
direct their arrows in a contest as to which could enter
nearest the heart. Only the youngest son refused to perpe-
trate so atrocious an act, and to him, as the most loving,
was awarded the estate.

The ninth tale shows how Friar Bacon presented three
thieves with the sum of one hundred pounds, but afterwards
caused them to be led such a dance across country by the
piping of his man Miles, that they abandoned their sacks of
money which were restored to their owner.

The tenth anecdote records how Vandermast sent a Walloon
soldier to murder Friar Bacon in his room, but the man was
so terrified when the friar raised up before his eyes the ghost
of the Roman Emperor, Julian the Apostate, in fiery tor-
ments, that he repented and sought a better course of life.

74 ROGER RACON

The story ends with the dismissal of the man by the friar
to the Crusades, where he was slain.

Then follows, in account number eleven of these marvel-
lous doings, the report that Bacon gained the mastery over
an old usurer by employing the funds he had himself
borrowed at interest, to benefit the poor, thereafter explain-
ing to the irate usurer that he, the friar, had only done
what the man himself had neglected to do.

Tale twelve relates to Bacon's man Miles, rather than to
the friar himself, and may be read in the Prose Romances.

The part played by Friar Bacon in marrying a young man
to the lady of his heart, is associated in the next and thirteenth
"historic" with the confounding of Friar Bungay, the
lady's father and the suitor to whom she felt so strong an
objection.

In the fourteenth tale, Vandermast reappears and enters
upon a trial of strength with Friar Bungay, devils represent-
ing Achilles and Hector being raised for combat. Finally,
a terrific thunderstorm arises, the subsidence of which
witnesses both the conjurers lying dead.

Tale fifteen concerns Miles, but the sixteenth narrative
returns us to Friar Bacon and his Perspective Glass, in which
two gentlemen behold their respective fathers in deadly duel.
The spectacle so enrages the youths that they themselves
fall upon one another with fatal result. The deaths of these
unfortunate persons so moves the friar that, in an agony of
remorse, be breaks the wonderful glass, and retires in shame
to his cell.

Here, in story seventeen, he, in repentance, devotes him-
self to religion, and as a proof of his reformation burns his
books containing "the greatest learnings in the world".

In his preface, Thorns refers to the tradition that Bacon
obtained his skill by promising himself to the devil, after his
death, on condition that he should die inside or outside the
church; to avoid which fulfilment "caused he to be made in
the church wall a cell" within which he awaited for death
for two years.

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 75

The "Famous Historic " ends with the friar thus en walled,
receiving food and drink and uttering his discourses from a
window. "Thus was the Life and Death of that famous
Fryer, who lived most of his life a Magician, and dyed a true
Penitent Sinner, and an Anchorite."

An old English play by Robert Greene 1 with the title of
The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
is to be found in Old English Drama, edited by Adolphus
William Ward, Litt.D. (Fourth edition, Oxford, Clarendon
Press, 1921. Impression of 1927. First edition 1879.)

In this drama we are introduced to the friar in his cell at
Brasenose where he is reported to be

"read in magic's mystery;
In pyromancy, to divine by flames :
To tell, by hydromancy, ebbs and tides;
By aeromancy to discover doubts;
To plain out questions, as Apollo did."

Act I, ii, 14-18.

He is "making a brazen head by art" with the intention
"To compass England with a wall of brass."
Lines 23-50.

To his cell comes Prince Edward who sees in the wonderful
glass a vision of "a lover and his lass" about to be wedded
by Friar Bungay who is struck dumb by Bacon's art and is
carried away by a devil. (Scene vi.)

Scene ix enacts the contest between Bungay and Vander-
mast at Oxford before the King, Henry III, the Emperor,
Frederick II, the King of Castile and Elinor, his daughter;
and it is then that Bacon, entering, transports Vandermast
safely to his study in Hapsburg.

1 ROBERT GREENE [1560-1592]. In a footnote Stevenson shows that
"Margaret" (to whom he had made reference) "was the widow of
John de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who died on the 22nd June, 1240".
John and Margaret are the lovers in Greene's play Friar Bacon and
Friar Bungay. (Op. cit., 230.)

76 ROGER BACON

In Scene xi, the story of the Brazen Head is dramatically
shown, Miles being banished by the angry friar from his
services.

Scene xiii depicts the cell visited by the two scholars, who,
seeing their fathers in mortal combat, stab one another and
fall dead to the consternation of both friars. Bacon speaks:

"I tell thee, Bungay, it repents me sore
That ever Bacon meddled in this art . . .
Bungay, I'll spend the remnant of my life
In pure devotion, praying to my God
That He would save what Bacon vainly lost."

In his introduction, Dr. Ward points out that wherever
theology and scholastic philosophy were studied, the sus-
picion of magic, or rather sorcery, prevailed. 1

Dr. Ward indicates also that this customary suspicion was
Bacon's reward for attempting to "give a freer and wider
range of culture to the University of Oxford".

This attempt has been considered a failure as far as his own
generation was concerned. Ward's comment regarding
Brasenose is enlightening, since the College was not in
existence in Bacon's time; he may have resided at one of the
halls, while the College itself may have subsequently derived
its name from the legend of Bacon's Brazen Head, a nose of
brass being placed over the gate.

Concerning the Prospective Glass, Ward states that it
appeared to represent in popular opinion a combination of the
telescope, burning-glass and camera obscura. He declares
that in Bacon's Opus majus the philosopher observed that
"a variety of apparitions" result from "artificial condensation
of the air and arrangement of several mirrors", and in a
footnote, that such a magic mirror was made by the enchanter

1 As shown at a later date by Paracelsus [1490-1541], magic is
essentially wisdom, knowledge of the secrets of nature as revealed by
God through man's intuition, and as a result of his search for truth.
Witchcraft, sorcery and necromancy, on the other hand, are essen-
tially evil.

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 77

Virgil to enable the Romans to see to a distance of thirty
miles, and also by Pope Gregory VII.

Ward attributes to Bacon the statement that Caesar
employed great mirrors in Gaul to ascertain the position of
the (supposed) enemy.

In his notes on Greene's play Friar Bacon and Friar
Bungay, Ward states that the King's Hall and College of
Brasenose was founded in 1509, but that Brasen Nose Hall
was very ancient and that in the thirteenth century it was
known by the same name on account of a nose of brass
fastened to the gate. (Old English Drama, 228.)

A similar note (p. 232) informs us that Professor Adamson
suggests that in both Greek and medieval thought mathe-
matics ''almost always included astronomy, harmony and
optics' 7 which idea may have been derived from the writings
of Aristotle.

A note explains that "prospective " is that which looks
forward whether into the future or the distance, or that
which is hidden from the bodily eye. (Op. cit., 247.)

VII Some Aspects of the
Opus Majus

There is no book quite like the ll Opus ma jus" in the
Middle Ages, nor has there been one quite like it
since. . . . It will therefore always remain one of the
most remarkable books of the thirteenth century.
Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and of
Experimental Science, Vol. II.

JOHN HENRY BRIDGES, M.B., F.R.C.P. produced in
1897 an edition of the Opus majus, published at Oxford by
the Clarendon Press.

A volume which appeared in 1914 was entitled The Life
and Work of Roger Bacon, with the sub-title of An Intro-
duction to the Opus mafus, with notes supplied by H. Gordon
Jones, F.I.C., F.C.S.; the book being published in London by
Williams and Norgate.

In the preface Mr. Jones informs us that Dr. Bridges
launched this new edition to mark the six-hundredth anni-
versary of a man whom he considered "one of the earliest
and . . . the greatest of Oxford thinkers".

Mr. Jones also points out that the new Oxford edition
differed from the earlier one of Samuel Jebb, which appeared
in 1733, in that it included the seventh part of the Opus
majus, on the subject of Moral Philosophy.

Dr. Bridges suggests that when Bacon sent his three works
to Pope Clement IV "a busy statesman" his idea was to
persuade Clement to undertake a thorough-going reform of
the Church, so that it might become a comprehensive,
spiritual organization in the world at that time.

78

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 79

This suggestion he bases upon Bacon's use of the word
persuasio to describe the Opus ma jus.

Moral philosophy was to Bacon the partner of theology,
for, as he had explained earlier, he conceived Greek philoso-
phy to be as much a development of the human mind and
spirit as the message of Hebrew prophets, both being equally
divinely inspired.

This view, combined with the importance which Bacon
attributed to Arabian philosophy, was too latitudinarian for
the acceptance of his generation. Nevertheless, it was based
on actual experience.

Two members of the Franciscan Order Carpini, 1 an early
follower of St. Francis, who was sent from Lyons to the

1 JOANNES DE PLANO CARPINI [1182-1252]. See the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, eleventh edition, Vol. V, for a full account of the first
explorer of Southern Russia and Central Asia, who had been a com-
panion and a follower of St. Francis of Assisi. Joannes was between
60 and 65 years of age when he started from Lyons in 1245, at the
request of Pope Innocent IV, on a mission to the Mongols, from
whom an invasion of Europe was feared.

At first his companion was Stephen of Bohemia, who was unable
to continue the journey after reaching Kiev, so another friar a
Pole, by name Benedict accompanied Joannes across the Dnieper,
the Don and the Volga, till they arrived at the headquarters of the
chief Tartar authority, Batu, who bade them continue their travels
till they should reach the court of the Khan himself.

On Easter Day, 1246 a year after they had set forth though
excessively weak and ill, they started on a 3,000 mile ride across the
Kirghiz steppes and Eastern Turkestan to Karakorum, which they
reached in 106 days. Here they found a great multitude assembled
for the election of the Khan's eldest son, Kuyuk, who was enthroned
on 24 August, after which he dismissed the friars with a missive
to the Pope. It is said that this document in Mongol, Latin and
Arabic claimed the right of the Tartar Khan to please himself in
the matter of invasion.

Almost another year elapsed before the weary travellers once more
appeared in Lyons. Joannes recorded his findings regarding the
Tartars in a wonderful descriptive narrative entitled Historia
Mongolorum quos nos Tartar os appellamus and in a second with the
title of Liber Tartorum. Subsequently, Carpini was appointed Arch-
bishop of Antivari in Dalmatia,

80 ROGER BACON

Ruler of the Tartars in Siberia, and Rubruck 1 (or Rubruquis)
who left Flanders at the request of Louis IX to go to Central
Asia, brought back reports which made a "deep impression"
upon Bacon who alludes to them in the Opus maj'us.

We are told by Dr. Bridges that Roger actually contacted
Rubruck when he visited Paris, and heard from him an
account of the great Congress of Faiths Christian, Moham-
medan and Buddhist which had taken place at Karakorum
at the invitation of the Tartar Khan, who presided over the
gathering.

Roger Bacon in his Opus majus quotes Rubruck, whom he
describes as "Brother William whom the King of France sent
to the Tartars, Ariiio Domini 1253 who travelled eastern
regions and districts adjoining them, and he wrote the afore-
said [descriptions] of the illustrious king, the Great Khan,
which book I studied diligently and with their author have
conferred". (Oxford edition, 1897, 353-6.) See also
Appendix IV and Bibliography.

1 WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK [1215-1270], was another Franciscan friar
who was also a traveller- missionary. The eleventh edition of the
Encyclopedia Britannica states that we know of him only from his own
writings and] from those of Roger Bacon. It is thought, but without
certainty, that William was a native of a village in French Flanders.

As early as 1248 Louis IX had sent a return mission to the Mongol
Khan, and his envoys had brought back with them an insolent letter
from the Regent -Mother in 1252.

Hearing that Sartak, the son of Batu, had been baptized as a
Christian, the French King decided to try again. This time his
messenger was Friar William, who, preaching in the church of
St. Sophia in Constantinople, on Palm Sunday, 1253, explained that
he would not go as a formal ambassador.

Rubruck landed with others in the Crimea whence they travelled
across the Don and Volga and across the steppes. As before, in the
case of Carpini, Batu sent on the travellers to the Khan himself,
a journey which has been estimated at 5,000 miles. The dates of
arrival at, and departure from, various halting-places are known and
Karakorum was not reached till 27 December 1253, where the
mission appears to have stayed till 10 July 1254.

Like Carpini, William wrote an account of his journey depicting
the character of the country, rivers, lakes, etc., and the manners
and customs of the peoples of Central Asia.

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 81

Hearing at first hand of this Congress, Bacon's conclusion
was that, of the three great religions proclaiming the exist-
ence of One God, the Christian Faith was superior to that of
either the Jews or the Moslems. Consequently he felt that
it was the r6le of the Catholic Church to seek to gather into
one fold men of divers beliefs and traditions.

Another valuable lesson to be learnt, according to Dr.
Bridges, from the Opus majus is that, in Bacon's own words
"all the sciences are connected". All have their separate uses,
but the highest use of all is to serve mankind.

In the same way, systems, however different, may be
regarded as having a unity of aim, that aim being to promote
human progress. Examples of such systems quoted by
Dr. Bridges are " Roman law, Greek thought and Hebrew
theocracy".

Dr. Bridges regards the views of Bacon on moral philosophy
as the "keystone" of the whole work, inasmuch as it treats
of "life and conduct".

Throughout the volume, mention is constantly made of a
projected work called Scriptum principals, of which the
Compendium studii philosophiae may have been intended as
an introduction. The Scriptum appears never to have been
completed, since Bacon's diatribes against existing institutions,
based on his own inner vision of the urgent need for a
reformed Church, led to his imprisonment and the enforced
end of his zealous admonitions.

An interesting reference to Bacon is to be found on page 37,
describing how Dr. John Dee addressed a Petition to Queen
Elizabeth in 1582, on the subject of the Calendar 1 and the
need for its emendation. We are told that "None hath done

1 The Calendar, drawn up by Julius Caesar with the assistance of the
astronomer Sosigenes, was a solar one, consisting of 365J days.
The months beginning with January were to consist of alternately
31 arid 30 days except February which had usually 29 and in leap
years 30 days. Caesar renamed the month Quintillis, July after
himself. Two extra months were inserted between November and
December. The year was some 12 minutes too long, but the error
was not corrected till the time of Gregory XIII.

F

82 ROGER BACON

it more earnestly, neither with better reason and skill, than
hath *a certain' David Dee of Radik" who turns out to be
none other than Friar Roger. A footnote informs us that
this Petition is preserved at Oxford among the Bryan Twyne
MSS. at Corpus Christi College.

Dr. Bridges enables us to realize with what joy Bacon
turned from the ponderous arguments of the schoolmen to
the new vista of truth to be unfolded before the mind's eye of
the ordinary seeker in his converse with his fellow men, and in
the daily lessons to be learned from the experiences of life itself.

The following important passage is quoted on page 25
from page 23 of the first volume of the Opus majus. "The
wiser men are the more humbly will they submit to learn
from others. ... I have learned more important truths
beyond comparison from men of humble station . . . than
from all the famous doctors."

Treating of the discussions of the scholastics, Dr. Bridges
believes that Bacon's ideal was to dissuade men from indulg-
ing in 'Verbal subtleties", and to direct them to the realities
of the everyday world.

It must, of course, be remembered that the words used in
the thirteenth century had not precisely the same meaning
that they have to-day; thus, what Bacon called "scientia de
ponderibus" , Dr. Bridges terms Barology, while Agriculture
had a far wider interpretation than the derivation of the
word would lead us to suppose.

Dr. Bridges thinks that in persuading men to make them-
selves conversant with languages Bacon's hope was two-fold;
that a better translation of the Scriptures might be forth-
coming, together with a more correct rendering of the works
of Aristotle. He informs us that Bacon's account of biblical
texts may be found in the Opus minus, pp. 33449. He
quotes Professor Brewer, page Lxii, as saying that Bacon's
endeavours in this direction have not received sufficient
recognition, and laments that Oxford was neither ready nor
willing to accept Bacon's ruling as to the need for such
studies as Hebrew and Arabic.

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 83

Turning to the upholding by Roger Bacon of the Law of
the Church (Canon Law), Dr. Bridges refers to the studies
of Roman and Civil Law which were taking place at Bologna,
and he quotes Bacon as exclaiming in the twenty-fourth
chapter of Opus tertium, "Oh that the canon law might be
purged from the superfluities of civil law, and be ordered by
theology; then would the government of the Church be
carried on honourably and suitably to its high position. "
A dream, but a hopeless one, doomed to disappointment.

There is a passage in the thirteenth chapter of the Opus
tertium wherein Bacon describes his instructor, Peter, as "a
master of experiment".

"He is ashamed that any things should be known to
laymen, old women . . . ploughmen of which he is
ignorant. Therefore, he has looked closely into the
doings of those who work in metals and minerals of all
kinds ... he has looked closely into agriculture, men-
suration, and farming work; he has even taken note of
the remedies, lot-casting and charms used by old
women and wizards, and magicians and of the decep-
tions and devices of conjurers. ... As for reward, he
neither receives or asks it."

In a footnote Mr. H. Gordon Jones asserts that Bacon
found the old Julian Calendar erroneous, since it added to
the length of the year 1/130 of a day, which worked out by
the thirteenth century at ten days too many.

VIII Why Roger Bacon became a
Franciscan - A Suggestion

JOHN RICHARD GREEN in his A Short History of
the English People reminds us that "the life of Roger Bacon
almost covers the thirteenth century", and that Oxford, when
Bacon studied there, u stood in the first rank among English
towns".

At Oxford, Edmund of Abingdon 1 introduced him to the
works of Aristotle. Green reminds us also that the spirit of
inquiry which the University of Oxford tended to foster,
was a direct threat to the Church, with the result that the
endeavour to establish scientific knowledge had to contend
with much opposition and many serious obstacles. Green
quotes (without stating the source) a long passage from
Roger Bacon explaining the difficulties which he met with
as a seeker after truth, in any save the accepted channels of
information. It runs as follows :

"Slowly has any portion of the philosophy of Aristotle
come into use among the Latins. His Natural Philosophy
and his Metaphysics with the commentaries of Averroes
and others were translated in my time, and interdicted
at Paris up to the year A.D. 1237, because of their asser-
tion of the eternity of time and of the world, and
because of the book of divinations by dreams (which is
the third book De somniis et vigiliis)? and because of
many passages erroneously translated. Even his logic
was slowly received and lectured on. For S. Edmund,

1 EDMUND RICH, born at Abingdon.

1 A work of Aristotle dealing with the theory of knowledge and of

scientific method.

84

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 85

the Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first in my time
who read the Elements at Oxford. And I have seen
Master Hugo, who first read the book of Posterior
Analytics, and I have seen his writing. So there were
but few considering the multitude of the Latins, who
were of any account in the philosophy of Aristotle;
nay, very few indeed and scarcely any up to this year
of grace 1292" (p. 129).

Green maintains that "the fortunes of the University were
obscured by the glories of Paris", to which place Bacon
resorted for the completion of his studies. Green's opinion
is that, whereas Feudalism tended to isolate men and groups
of men, so the university, and particularly that of Paris,
was, as it were, a protest against this isolation. He shows too,
how all nations were represented in the Paris schools, where
they could speak a common language (Latin) and enjoy the
intercourse of mind with mind in a common learning which
transcended local, provincial and national differences and
squabbles.

We are told by Green that Bacon expended what wealth
he had in "costly studies and experiments". The historian
of the English people quotes Roger (once again without
stating the source of his quotation) as follows: "From my
youth up, I have laboured at the sciences and tongues, I have
sought the friendship of all men among the Latins who had
any reputation for knowledge. I have caused youths to be
instructed in languages, geometry, arithmetic, the construc-
tion of tables and instruments, and many needful things
besides" (p. 129).

But these "needful things" cost money. "Without
mathematical instruments no science can be mastered",
cried Roger despairingly, "and these instruments are not to
be found among the Latins, and could not be made for two
or three hundred pounds. Besides, better tables are indis-
pensably necessary, tables on which the motions of the
heavens are certified from the beginning to the end of the

86 ROGER BACON

world without daily labour, but these tables are worth a
king's ransom, and could not be made without a vast expense.
I have often attempted the composition of such tables, but
could not finish them through failure of means and the folly
of those whom I had to employ" (p. 129).
This was not the only source of complaint.

u The philosophical works of Aristotle, of Avicenna, of
Seneca, of Cicero and other ancients cannot be had with-
out great costs; their principal works have not been
translated into Latin, and copies of others are not to be
found anywhere, so far as I can hear, though I have
made anxious enquiry for them in different parts of the
world, and by various messengers. I could never find
the works of Seneca, though I made diligent search for
them during twenty years and more. And so it is with
many more most useful books connected with the sciences
or morals" (pp. 129-30).

Poor Bacon! We can perceive his great mind ranging afar,
while his purse was empty. No wonder he rejoiced in pouring
out the riches of his intellect upon such fertile ground as the
eager mind of his young disciple. Writing to the Pope con-
cerning the fifteen-year-old John, he claims that:

"I have caused him to be nurtured and instructed for
the love of God, especially since for aptitude and
innocence I have never found so towardly a youth.
Five or six years ago I caused him to be taught in
languages, mathematics and optics, and I have gratuit-
ously instructed him with my own lips since the time
that I received your mandate. There is no one at Paris
who knows so much of the root of philosophy, though
he has not produced the branches, flowers, and fruit
because of his youth and because he has had no experi-
ence in teaching. But he has the means of surpassing all
the Latins if he lives to grow old, and goes on as he has
begun" (p. 130).

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 87

One wonders at the silence of history regarding this promis-
ing student, and whether Bacon's discriminating prediction
was fulfilled.

Of optics Bacon stated that "The science . . . has not
hitherto been lectured on at Paris or elsewhere among the
Latins, save twice at Oxford" (p. 130).

Green asserts that the thirteenth century did not want
Bacon's science, with the result that at the end of forty years
the philosopher found himself, as he himself admitted,
"unheard, forgotten, buried" (p. 130).

Bridges suggests that the two thousand pounds which
Bacon spent on books and instruments were French pounds,
and therefore represented a considerable sum. When they
were gone, no further source of income remained.

Green seems to hint that Bacon, "ruined and baffled",
followed the advice of Grosseteste in entering the Franciscan
Order, wherein poverty was the Rule and "books and tables"
were frowned upon as hindrances to its acknowledged work
of ministry to the lepers, the poor, the sick and all those in
need of the preaching of the Gospel.

Whether this surmise as to Roger's strange* act in becom-
ing a Franciscan be correct or not, it could not curb his
mental activity, as proved by the production in a year 1267
"the Annas Mirabilis in English science" of the Opus
majus.

Green, quoting Dr. Whewell, 1 explains the object of this
work as having been "to urge the necessity of a reform in the
modes of philosophizing, to set forth the reasons why know-
ledge had not made a greater progress, to draw back attention
to sources of knowledge which had been unwisely neglected,
to discover other sources which were yet wholly unknown,

1 WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., the son of a carpenter, was born at
Lancaster in 1794, and had a successful career at Trinity College,
Cambridge, of which he became Master. He became a Fellow of the
Royal Society, holding Professorships of Mineralogy and Moral
Theology. Among the subjects of his writings were the tides,
electricity, magnetism, and the history of moral philosophy in
England. He died in 1866.

88 ROGER BACON

and to animate men to the undertaking by a prospect of the
vast advantages which it offered " (p. 131).

Green would have us believe that mathematics comprised
all the physical science of the time. He quotes Bacon as
declaring: "The neglect of it for nearly thirty or forty years
hath nearly destroyed the entire studies of Latin Christen-
dom. For he who knows not mathematics cannot know any
other sciences; and what is more, he cannot discover his own
ignorance or find its proper remedies" (p. 132).

Green gives as one of his main sources the writings of
Matthew Paris (Rolls Series) but, in treating of Roger Bacon,
his final citation is again from Dr. Whewell, who considered
the Opus rnajus "at once the Encyclopaedia and the Novum
Organum of the thirteenth century" (p. 132).

IX Student and Interpreter
of the Scriptures

WE are indebted to Beryl Smalley, of Girton College,
Cambridge, for a work entitled The Study of the Bible in the
Middle Ages, published in 1941 by the Clarendon Press,
Oxford.

This book discusses the history of scholarship as applied to
the study of the Bible, from the time of the early Fathers to
the period of scholasticism as expounded by the friars. It
deals with the subjects of logic and its branches dialectics
or the rules and modes of reasoning, rhetoric or the theory
and language of eloquent speech, and grammar, in the sense
of the right use of language of those studies in fact which
so greatly exercised the mind of Roger Bacon.

The author shows how these sciences and liberal arts are
necessary, in so far as they contribute to an understanding of
Scripture, the knowledge of which requires such aids as the
mastery of tongues, grammar and history.

We are informed that original written exegesis (the inter-
pretation of the Scriptures) "began again during the middle
of the eleventh century ", which gave rise to the textbook
movement; that is, the provision of a commentary or gloss,
used in the study of the Bible and also of Roman and Canon
Law. The result appears in the production of the Gloss
ordinaria.

This leads to a chapter devoted to the Victorines the
monks and scholars of the Abbey of St. Victor at Paris,
founded in 1110. Of these the two most famous were Hugh
and his pupil Andrew.

A text or scriptural passage might be interpreted literally,

89

90 ROGER BACON

allegorically, metaphorically, or mystically and morally, and
it seems that Andrew of St. Victor accepted the literal
interpretation .

In this connection Smalley points out that a commentary
may be produced in the cloister, while a gloss, providing
notes on the text and information regarding the standard
works upon it, came from the classroom and was intended to
assist the student when he left the lecture hall.

As a commentator or glossator, Andrew maintained that
his writings were undertaken for his own satisfaction, as an
aid to memory and as a work which he enjoyed. His teaching
is given in a quotation, part of which runs as follows:
"Righteousness is its own reward, and what more righteous
for a rational creature than to investigate the truth? We
think so."

He goes on to write of "the toilsome search for wisdom . . .
this pleasant toil, this toilsome pleasure".

Soon after we are told that "you cannot do what you will,
if you will not do what you can. He is not altogether useless
who is useful to himself."

Still later he explains that "No one is obliged to take my
gift. I keep watch for myself, I work for myself."

Smalley shows how as Jerome "had followed the Greeks,
so Andrew will follow Jerome". She shows, further, how the
exegete himself stated his sources. Andrew claimed that he
had used commentaries and glosses, and that his instructors
"had been Jews and others". The names of these Jewish
teachers are given, but it is also mentioned that the Jewish
communities of Northern France may have been in personal
contact with the Christian scholars, so that Andrew knew
them as well as their works. He studied the Hebrew text and
accepted as literal the Jewish explanation.

As at least fourteen of Andrew's manuscripts are extant,
Roger Bacon, whom Smalley terms "the most popular of
English thirteenth-century scholars", was enabled to read
them, and we know that he did so. In his Compendium
studii philosophiae he complains of the authority "ascribed

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 91

to a certain Andrew" who expounds the Bible ad liter am.
Nevertheless, he praises the said Andrew for the following
reasons: "He stirs us up about the doubtful passages of our
translation, in many cases, though not always, and sends us
to the Hebrew that we may seek our explanations more
surely at the root. Few would take thought for the true
explanation of this passage and many others, unless they had
seen how Andrew treats it" (viii Ed. Brewer Rolls Series,
482-3).

Smalley, who regarded Bacon as "a rebellious reactionary
or a reactionary rebel", states that his objections to the
scholastic method are expressed in a passage of the Opus minus
(p. 323), in which he condemns the arbitrary custom of
introducing "concordances or rhythms" from commentaries
on the philosophers, grammarians and law-books.

Smalley believes that Bacon's thinking was "conservative".
She quotes a passage approving another monk of St. Victor,
Richard, who wrote regarding the Tabernacle and the
Temple. Bacon emphasizes the necessity of geometry "in
order that the Noe's ark, the tabernacle with all its furniture,
the temple of Solomon and Ezechiel may be described
physically . . . otherwise it is not possible for the literal sense
to be known, nor hi consequence the spiritual. The holy and
wise men of old strove after this. I have seen some of their
work, and this is how Scripture represents things, that we
may know old and new, and see with our eyes the cult of
that people which prefigures the new." (Opus tertium, 203.)

From her studies of Roger Bacon's works, Smalley is of the
opinion that Bacon, like SS. Jerome and Augustine, urged
that Scripture be read in the original. Hence he urged also
the necessity for knowledge of Hebrew and Chaldean for the
study of the Old Testament, and the Greek Fathers for that
of the New. She summarizes Bacon's war-cry as Veritas in
radice Truth is in the source.

Taking this as his slogan, it was essential for the student to
start with the Lathi Vulgate. But what of the original?
Bacon prayed the Pope to appoint a commission of scholars

92 ROGER BACON

to revise the existing version of the Vulgate. He insisted
that to understand the Vulgate one must have a knowledge
of Jerome's vocabulary and background, and he would not
accept glosses made later than the time of the early Fathers.
Taking the word lectus from the gloss on Ezek. xxiii, 41,
Bacon denied the accepted translation of 'bed', maintaining
that it was the couch on which men of old time reclined
when taking a meal.

It is made plain that Bacon contributed in three ways to
the biblical scholarship of his day. Firstly, by pointing out and
listing mistakes in the accepted texts. Secondly, by formulat-
ing rules for the study of original texts. Thirdly, by com-
posing Greek and Hebrew grammars. Smalley suggests that
his idea of composing a Greek grammar was his own, but she
goes on to make the unusual suggestion that "he administered
his grammar by magic arts". This remarkable notion appears
to have been based upon Bacon's alleged statement that he
could initiate a would-be learner into the Hebrew or Greek
tongues so that after three days the initiate could read those
languages! 1 She claims to guess at his method, but does not
reveal it, merely referring her readers to a forthcoming
article to be issued in the Journal of the Warburg Institute
by herself and E. Jaffe. 2

Though denying that Bacon was, strictly speaking, a
biblical scholar, Smalley attributes to him disapproval of the
Correctoria or lists of corrections introduced by the Domini-
cans, and approval of the use of the ancient Latin, as well as
Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. We are told that Bacon's

1 Thorndike^ op. ciY., suggests that Bacon's boast was less extravagant
than it seems. He thinks Bacon did not know "a vast amount" of
Greek, Hebrew and geometry. He further quotes from Professor
D. E. Smith's translation of Bacon's Communia mathematica^ in which
the complaint is made of the "thirty or forty years" spent by
teachers of mathematics who seek to demonstrate it and continue
"multiplying conclusions" so that "there are so few students of a
science which is a prerequisite to all knowledge".

2 Not yet published (13th August 1953). To be published by the
Warburg Institute in Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies.

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 93

friend William de la Mare, a Franciscan teaching in Paris
about 1260, also produced a Correctorium, which stated that
the Vulgate version of a text must not be altered when its
meaning was not the same as the Hebrew.

Another Franciscan mentioned by Smalley was Thomas
Docking, a pupil of Roger Bacon, who spoke in his lectures
of the "subtle, noble, literal sense".

X The Master Mind

The mind of Roger Bacon was strangely compounded

of almost prophetic gleams of the future course of

science , and the best principles of the inductive

philosophy".

Henry Hallam, Literature of the Middle Ages, Vol.1.

IN 1928 A. G. Little, D.Litt. delivered the Henrietta Hertz
Trust of the British Academy Annual Lecture on a Master
Mind, choosing for his subject Roger Bacon.

This was published in pamphlet form by Humphrey
Milford, Amen House, London, E.G., being Vol. XIV of the
Proceedings of the British Academy.

On 4 July 1928 A. G. Little, a Fellow of the British
Academy, put forward the view that the writings of Bacon
had been studied continuously since his death, and that they
are still being studied.

He also stated that as early as 1385 occurred the earliest
reference to the legends associated with "Friar Roger called
Bachon". The writer was the physician Peter of Trou, in
Dalmatia, who mentioned such wonders as a bridge passing
through the air, and the two Oxford mirrors, by one of which
candles might be lighted at any hour, and by the second of
which one might perceive the doings of others in any part
of the world.

In an age of learning Bacon was considered "most learned
in all subjects". Little suggests that until the year 1247 the
philosopher was pursuing ordinary studies, but that, after
this date, he left the "beaten track" and "laboured specially
in the study of wisdom", according to his own plan. Among
his early work may have been the treatise on Old Age

94

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 95

which was undertaken at the instigation of Philip de Greve,
Chancellor of Paris, who died in 1236.

A manuscript in the library of Amiens (MS. 406) contained
a number of Quaestiones on Aristotle.

Little maintains that during the second period Bacon for-
sook argument for "experience", and he quotes from Bacon's
letter to the Pope regarding the burning glass made by a
Paris craftsman during a number of years, which revealed
"the beautiful power of wisdom".

It is also stressed that Bacon asserted that by means of the
knowledge of created things we attain a knowledge of the
Creator. Here is Bacon's motive for inquiring into natural
things. We are told that in the Opus rnajus (iii, 80, 119-25)
he inveighed vehemently against the folly of Crusades,
advocating in their place the method of "simple preaching"
to the heathen, as practised in the early Church.

His knowledge of geography appears likewise to have been
based on "experience", for he claimed to have perused his
book diligently and conferred with the author (William de
Rubruck) and with many others who have investigated the
geography of the East and South. (Opus majus, i, 305; cf.
303, 356-74, 400.)

Feeling the need for a map of the known world, Roger
constructed such a map, with the chief towns shown in red
circles on the parchment, and the latitude and longitude of
each roughly estimated. (Brewer, Computus studii, 429-30.)
Whilst he alludes to the discovery by Monsignor Pelzer in
the Vatican Library of missing parts of the Opus minus, and
a portion of the Opus rnajus sent by Bacon to Clement IV,
Little states that Bacon's map has not yet come to light.

In the lecture a passage from the Opus majus (iii, 68)
which may be regarded as Bacon's confession of faith was
mentioned: "There is one perfect wisdom which is contained
in Holy Scriptures and has been given by God to the saints."
In this connection Roger sought out whatever evidence there
might be to substantiate the belief held generally in the
thirteenth century that Anti-Christ was about to appear. As

96 ROGER BACON

part of this evidence the current idea of an imminent invasion
of Europe by the Tartars "through the midst of the gates,
far away among the mountains where they were enclosed"
appears to have been accepted by him.

Bacon believed, according to Little, that Anti-Christ would
employ all kinds of forces derived from the processes of
nature and art to confound the world. Hence arose Bacon's
idea that these occult forces, instead of being ostracized by
Church and State, on account of possible evil consequences,
should be investigated by the Church, in order that, directed
by the Pope, the Church might meet Anti-Christ and over-
throw the evil power by his own occult weapons. (Opus
majus, 221 and Opus tertium, 17, 18, 54.)

It was Roger's belief also that the evil powers would
employ, not magic forces only, but man-made inventions.
Contrary to the opinion of other scholars, Little attributes to
Bacon the conception of marvellous machines, such as the
"flying machine and a navigating machine", as well as a
mechanical car, answering in its description to a present day
tank. Bacon claimed that such contraptions had been made
in his own, as well as in former times, so that he could "speak
with certainty of them " . ( Opus tertium ,19.)

When we remember that Bacon lived in an age which con-
ceived the earth to be the centre of the universe, it is not to
be wondered at that he shared the common belief in
astrology, 1 or the influence of the stars upon human events.
Little states that Roger found his fellow men failing to
regulate their lives by the motions of the stars and he urged
that because the subject was a complex one, no excuse
existed for neglecting it.

1 With regard to experience and experimental science Thorndike's
view seems to be that Bacon, like Albertus Magnus and others, was
not altogether consistent in writing about astrology and magic. In
certain cases Bacon, like others, gave credit to alleged marvels: in
other places condemnation was expressed for necromancy and
magicians. An interesting point is that Bacon accepted the idea that
valuable medical knowledge may be gathered by observing the
remedies used by animals in cases of sickness or injury.

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 97

In his lecture on a "Master Mind" it is interesting to note
Little's findings with regard to Bacon's own view on the
mind. We are told that, like his fellow Franciscans, this
"Master Mind" perceived the lack of true knowledge regard-
ing the simplest natural object, and the contradictory opinions
of those who claimed to know. Bacon's argument appears to
have run thus: "No one knows truly and adequately the
nature of the tiniest thing, such as a single blade of grass or a
fly." It continued as follows: if mistakes abound concerning
material things, how much more is this the case of spiritual
things. Therefore true wisdom can only come through
Divine revelation (Opus majus, ii, 384); that which Bacon
termed Intellectus agens, which, inspiring the human mind,
produces that oft-repeated word "experience". (Opus majus,
ii, 170-1.)

In a final paragraph Little explains that Bacon fully
realized the tremendous amount of fraud existing then (as
now) among so-called magicians ; but at the same time he was
aware of the immense powers of occult forces, such as the
spoken word under certain circumstances. He felt acutely
that the world is full of things of which we have no know-
ledge, through lack of investigation. (Opus majus, ii, 218.)
His summing-up of this subject regarding Bacon is that "he
will not pack comfortably into a nut-shell ... he had his
feet firmly planted in medieval soil, and yet had a strikingly
clear vision of far off future things".

XI On Medicine

FOR a study of Bacon's treatise on the Delaying of Age (De
retardations accidentium senectutis) we must turn to a
volume in which this treatise is edited for the first time by
A. G. Little and E. Withington (Oxford, Clarendon Press,
1928).

After a comparison in the first part of the introduction
of the texts, by Mr. Little, Mr. Withington presents a
second part comprising a short description of the characteris-
tics of De retardatione, Roger's authorities, his system of
medicine, and an exposition of the secret remedies specially
advocated by the philosopher.

Withington considers the treatise on Old Age to be a
"grievous disappointment", since it shows little originality on
Bacon's part, and too much acceptance of current medical
theories and practices.

Unlike Paracelsus, Bacon took for granted the teaching of
the physician Galen, and he also pinned his faith to the
medicine of Chaldea and Greece. Especially did he follow
Arabian medicine. Bacon considered the greatest of Aristotle's
works to be his Secretion secretorum.

Among the Arabian medical authorities, in addition to
Avicenna, whom Bacon quoted 100 times, were Rhazes,
Haly Regalis, and Haly super Tegni, Isaac, Ahmed, and
Damascenus.

Roger Bacon accepted the doctrines of the thirteenth cen-
tury with regard to the four humours fire, air, earth and
water, and the four natural qualities cold, heat, moisture
and dryness. He believed in the existence in the human
body of blood, phlegm, and yellow and black bile, all of which
were connected with the "four digestions".

Withington suggests that Bacon not only treated of current

98

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 99

medicine, but that he added thereto. This he did by naming
certain substances for the prevention of old age, not hitherto
openly disclosed. These secret remedies or occulta were
seven in number. The first, found in the ground, was
probably gold, which being precious and incorruptible,
alchemically connected with the suri, was a recognized
remedy from very early times.

The sea yields two occulta ambergris and pearls, the
former a mysterious product of the whale, 1 the second an
ancient remedy advocated by Paracelsus.

Owing to their habit of sloughing their skins, vipers may
have given rise to the idea that vipers' flesh has the power of
rejuvenation and of healing. Vipers being common, the
occult side of this remedy lay in the right kind of serpent,
and in preparing the skin in the correct manner.

The fourth occultum is a far pleasaiiter one. It is the shrub,
rosemary, which, in case of survival, lives for many years.
Bacon mentions a "queen" who had benefited by its qualities,
and this reference may have been later associated with the
Queen of Hungary, whose youth was so restored by means of
rosemary that when a widow of seventy-two years she
received a proposal of marriage from the King of Poland.

The fifth occultum concerned the bodily heat generated by
the young and healthy, whether of human beings or of
animal fellow-creatures. Bacon was probably thinking of
Galen's counsel for persons with "cold indigestions" who
should resort to the remedy of receiving upon the region of
the stomach "a plump child or a fat puppy". Withington
affords the interesting information that Thomas Sydenham
believed that the bodily heat from a healthy person is
"balsamic" in nature.

It was believed that the hearts of certain large animals
such as a stag became partly ossified, with the result that they
were imbued with Virtue', and as such might form an

1 The writer has heard it stated in a scientific broadcast that the
nature of ambergris remains a secret, unanalysed by twentieth-
century science.

100 ROGER BACON

ingredient in the so-called elixir of long life. Such was the
basis of the sixth occultum, taking the form of the bone of
stag's heart.

Because the flesh of dragons has an outer coating of hard
scales, it was supposed, when suitably prepared, to prevent the
accidents of old age. This seventh occultum was also credited
with increasing human wisdom.

Withington estimates that Bacon's best treatise is that one
entitled the Errors of doctors (De erroribus medicorum) ,
but he points out that the task of criticizing the medical
profession is not a difficult one. We may, however, admit
that Bacon, by pointing out that "no argument whatsoever
can end in absolute knowledge of fact", has performed a
service to his own century and all subsequent ones.

Among the remedies from the plant kingdom known and
used in the Complete Glossary of Drugs which follows the
notes of the Latin version of Bacon's De retardatione are the
following: aloes, anthos (rosemary), balsam (of Gilead and
Engedi), basil, wild cabbage, calamint, camomile, wild
carrot, cassia, celandine (greater), cinnamon, crocus (saffron),
dittany, elder, fennel, fumitory, hellebore, hound's tongue,
mace, marjoram, myrobalan, olea, penny-royal, pome-
granates, radish and rhubarb.

XII An Estimate of his
Philosophy

A NUMBER of Lectures on the Study of History delivered
at Owens College, Manchester, have been collected into one
volume, published in 1854. (In London by Longman, Brown,
Green and Longmans; and by Taylor, Walton and Maberly.
In Cambridge by Macmillan & Sons; in Manchester by
T. Sowles.)

It was published at the desire of the Trustees of Owens
College "for its intrinsic value", and to complete for them
the series of inaugural lectures by professors and teachers of
that institution.

The last of these lectures is entitled "Roger Bacon, the
Philosophy of Science in the Middle Ages". An introduction
to the Sessions 1876-7, by Robert Adamson, M.A., Professor
of Logic in Owens College. (Manchester, J. E. Cornish.
London, Simpkins, Marshall & Co. 1876.)

In a prefatory note Adamson expresses his indebtedness to
Charles's "extremely interesting work" which seems to have
attracted "singularly little attention among English readers".
Adamson adds that Charles "does not seem to me to have
appreciated fully Bacon's attempted reform of scientific
method, the most valuable part of his philosophy".

Adamson asserts that "the great Humboldt 1 does not
hesitate to call Bacon 'the most astonishing phenomenon of
the Middle Ages' ". He himself considers Bacon "this great,
but much neglected thinker".

He shows that scholasticism consisted in refusing to discuss,

1 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH ALEXANDER, BARON VON HUMBOLDT [1769-
1859], naturalist, chemist, author of geographical works and
Cosmos (1845-1862).

101

102 ROGER BACON

or esteem of interest or importance, anything "which had
not on its side the weight of authority" ... (p. 10). From
its nature it was futile, and the Doctor admirabilis could not
but reject it.

Adamson feels that if we examine the Arabian writers of
the time, the contrast between Bacon and his more famous
contemporaries will no longer astonish us (p. 13). The
scientific enquiry of the former, their skill in mathematics,
and their proclivities for practical invention appealed to the
said Doctor. An example was the Optica thesaurus of Alhazen,
which scarcely, if at all, was surpassed by Bacon in his
Perspective.

Of one of his great contemporaries (probably either
Thomas or Albertus) Bacon wrote: "He is a man of infinite
patience and has amassed great information, but his works
have four faults. The first is boundless, puerile vanity; the
second is ineffable falsity; the third is superfluity of bulk;
and the fourth is ignorance of the most useful and most
beautiful parts of philosophy" (p. 15).

Bacon called "the Angelic Doctor" Thomas Aquinas
"vir erroneous et famosus" (a famous man but a blunderer).
Bacon's fame, according to Adamson, rests on his attempted
reformation of scientific method, and his work lay rather in
theory than in practice. Thus Part I of the Opus majus
consists in a setting forth of the causes, offendicula, as Bacon
termed them, which have proved obstacles to philosophy
among the Latin peoples. These were subjection to (1)
authority; (2) custom; (5) popular opinion and the hiding of
ignorance under the cloak of pretended knowledge.

This revolt against scholasticism, this plea for freedom of
thought, led Bacon to declare that authority, though it
attempts to compel belief, cannot enlighten the under-
standing. He also stated, "Whatever seems true to the many
must necessarily be false", and that the argument of his day
was "This is affirmed by our superiors; this is the customary
opinion; this is the popular view; therefore it must be
admitted".

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 103

Roger Bacon realized that the ordinary people are not
guilty of the fourth fault, which is, as Adamson expresses it,
"the peculiar property of the learned professors'*.

Part II is concerned with the relationship between theology
and philosophy, "the end of all true philosophy " being, as
Bacon maintained, "to arrive at a knowledge of the Creator
through knowledge of the created world", of which assertion
Adamson opines that: "A better definition has seldom been
given". He explains that Bacon believed that all knowledge
is revealed in the Scriptures, but that such knowledge is
implied; hence the r61e of philosophy is to expound this
implied revelation.

The third part lays the foundation of the new structure of
real knowledge, which can only be obtained through
Philology a most comprehensive word, termed inadequately
by Bacon "Grammar", which entails the study of Hebrew,
Greek, Arabic and Chaldean. The study of original Greek
must be followed by that of the Syriac versions, Arabic
translations of the Syriac, and, finally, Latin versions of the
Arabic.

Part IV deals with mathematics to assist theology and
science, for to Bacon all natural philosophy is based on
mathematics.

Regarding Part V, Adamson considers that in optics
Bacon's knowledge did not go beyond that of the Arab,
Alhazen, and that Part VI, dealing with science based on
experience, is the most important. Argument cannot provide
proof, which experience undoubtedly affords. This Bacon
illustrated by the knowledge of fire, which must be based on
practical experience. Thus, observation at first-hand is
essential, and the function of such science is verification.
(Opus majus, 448.) This he exemplified by the phenomenon
of the rainbow.

In treating of Bacon's classification of the sciences in a
natural or genetic order, Adamson suggests in a note that
Bacon's ideas correspond with those of the Arabian philoso-
pher, Alph-arabius.

XIII In Memoriam

ON the occasion of the seventh centenary of his birth a
volume was issued by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, bearing
the name of A. G. Little and entitled Roger Bacon: Com-
memoration Essays, consisting of fourteen appreciations by
various writers.

In his introduction Little states that Bacon twice heard
William of Auvergne lecture at Oxford on the subject of the
Intellectus agens, and also that he heard John of Garlandia
inveigh against those ignorant of etymology.

He also mentions that Bacon suffered a breakdown in
health, since he wrote of being unable to take part in Oxford
affairs, "owing to many infirmities 7 '. This was between
1256 and 1266.

Little also mentions "a glimpse" of Bacon engaged in
hearing "a magical tale" at Paris.

Bacon was interested in international affairs, such as the
Crusades of the French King, Louis IX, and the struggle
between Frederick II and the Pope. He was aware of the
brutalities of the Teutonic knights, and was not slow to
recognize the difficulty which these caused to the friars who
were endeavouring to convert the Slavs to Christianity. He
greatly appreciated the preaching of the German Friar
Berthold of Regensburg, declaring his "magnificent work"
to be of more value than that of almost all the other friars.

Little refers to a letter brought by Sir William Bonecor
from Bacon to Clement IV, which alas I is missing, and Bacon's
extreme gratitude to Clement when the latter requested his
work. Again Bacon mentioned his lack of health as one of his
difficulties in carrying out the Pope's commission.

An interesting point is made by Little when he relates that

104

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 105

Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly in his Imago mundi quoted from the
Opus majus (Book iv) a portion dealing with geography
which was read by Christopher Columbus. The latter was so
interested that he sent notes and quotations from it to the
reigning monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, and this may
have been an incentive to Columbus to embark on his
travels.

An essay by Frangois Picavet, Secretaire du College de
France, treats of the place of Bacon among the philosophers
of the thirteenth century, in which it is claimed that he has
shown in a full, but always precise manner, what should be
realized and pursued by himself, his contemporaries and their
successors under the existing system of princes, kings and the
Papacy.

Cardinal Gasquet deals with Bacon's attitude towards the
Latin Vulgate and points out "how true and clear " were his
findings on the subject of biblical revision.

The fifth essay is by S. A. Hirsch who makes it plain that
Bacon implied the vast branch of learning known as Philology
when he advocated the study of "Grammar".

Hirsch considers that Bacon hoped to produce works similar
to his Greek Grammar for the Arabic, Hebrew and Chaldean
languages, but he seems to have completed only "the
elaborate treatise" for the study of Greek. In this connection
he named seventeen authorities consulted by him, of whom
the Venerable Bede was one of the greatest. It is the opinion
of Hirsch that Bacon thought Hebrew to be the tongue in
which God's revelation to humanity had been made, and he
quotes from the Opus majus a passage to this effect: "God
has revealed philosophy to his saints to whom he also gave
the law. ... It was delivered complete in all its details in
the Hebrew language."

Concerning the arguments as to which was the earliest
language, Hirsch inserts a note on the curious experiments
initiated by the Emperor Frederick II. Babies, denied any
intercourse through speech with foster-mothers or nurses,
instead of demonstrating hi later years what language they

106 ROGER BACON

would utter, died, apparently through lack of affectionate
companionship and any mental stimulus.

David Eugene Smith treats of mathematics and of Bacon's
place in the history of this science. He mentions Hermann, 1
of Germany, and Master Nicholas as two of the mathematical
scholars of his day, but he states that Bacon held the mathe-
matics of his century "in profound contempt". "When I
questioned him about certain books of logic which he had to
translate from the Arabic, he roundly told me that he knew
nothing of logic, and therefore did not dare to translate them.
. . . Nor did he understand Arabic as he confessed."

Thus, from Bacon's own words, do we gather how unsatis-
factory was the professed scholarship of the time.

We are told that Bacon was termed at one time "the great
mathematician" and that in one of his essays the treatise
dealing with old age which was published in Latin at
Oxford in 1590 he was termed "doctissimus mathe-
maticus" .

The tenth essay, by Pierre Duhem, Membre de 1'Institut de
France, in French, has the title "Roger Bacon et 1'horreur du
vide" explaining the philosopher's attitude towards the
proposition that "Nature abhors a vacuum".

A writer on alchemy M. M. Pattison Muir contributed
Essay XI on "Roger Bacon: His Relations to Alchemy and
Chemistry". He explains that man's power to bring about
changes in metals and minerals were sometimes so wonderful
as to be considered due to the intervention of evil forces,
which gave rise to the idea that behind these manifest trans-
mutations there must be something of oneness and simplicity
in nature itself. He quotes from Bacon's Speculum alchimiae
as follows: "Alchemy is the art of science teaching how to
make or generate a certain kind of medicine, which is called

1 HERMANN, THE GERMAN. According to Thorndike, he was a
translator of Aristotle and Averroes in the thirteenth century. He
quotes Steinschineider (1905), pp. 325, as describing Hermannus
Alemannus, or Teutonicus, as being a teacher of Roger Bacon in
Toledo(?) about 1240-1260,

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 107

the Elixir, and which being projected upon metals or imper-
fect bodies, by thoroughly tingeing and fixing them, perfects
them in the highest degree, even in the very moment of
projection." (Opus tertium, xii, 14. Brewer's edition.) Thus
Muir considers that practical alchemy consists in the prepara-
tion of this Elixir, sometimes called the Magistery. He
states that Bacon called the Elixir "the Philosopher's Egge",
and that he gave directions for producing it in his Speculum
alchimiae. To him practical alchemy dealt with the purifica-
tion of metals, not to be confused with speculative alchemy.
He believed in the four elements of earth, water, fire, and air,
and of the four conditions of dryness, wetness, hotness, and
coldness, in the fundamental importance of mercury and
sulphur, and in gold as the perfect metal, formed by quick-
silver and sulphur in their purest forms and in their proper
proportions. But Muir alleges that Bacon did not accept the
idea of a universal primary matter.

Bacon placed alchemy fourth among the sciences, and was
convinced of its importance as a branch of knowledge. Thus
he was a predecessor of the modern exponents of chemistry.

Unlike most other biographers Lieut. -Colonel H. W. L.
Hime, author of the twelfth essay, is of the opinion that Bacon
discovered gunpowder, which others affirm was known before
his time. He refers to a work entitled Epistola de secretis
operibus artis et naturae et de nullitate magiae (about 1248)
in which Bacon mentions "crackers" formed of saltpetre,
charcoal, and sulphur.

Hime asserts that Bacon attacked magic and, since it was a
dangerous pursuit, he went on to show that alchemists had
to disguise their writings by means of codes. One of these
methods consisted hi the use of an anagram, which, when
worked out, could form a recipe for an explosive mixture.
Another method was that of abbreviations. 1

The discovery may have been accidental owing to an
explosion in the course of an experiment, and possibly this
occurrence gave rise to the story of the explosion of his Brazen
i See XIV infra.

108 ROGER BACON

Head, which "fell down, and . . . followed a terrible noyse
with strange flashes of fire".

Essay XIII is on medicine by E. Withington, allusion to
which has already been made (XI supra), while the last of
the Commemoration Essays was contributed by Sir John
Edwyn Sandys, who endeavoured to determine Roger
Bacon's place in English literature. He concludes with the
words of Mr. Robert Leslie Ellis, an editor of the other
Bacon's works, who once said to Dr. Whewell after reading
some of Roger's writings, "I am inclined to think that he
may have been a greater man than our Francis".

Certain essays which have not yet been considered are four
German appreciations contributed by the undermentioned
authorities: Universitatsprofessor Dr. Ludwig Baur (Tu-
bingen), Der Einfluss des Robert Grosstete auf die wissen-
schafdiche Richtung des Roger Bacon, Geheimer Hofrat
Professor Dr. Eilhard Wiedemann (Erlangen), Roger Bacon
und seine Verdienste urn die Optik; Dr. Sebastian Vogl
(Passau), Roger Bacon's Lehre von der sinnlichen. Spezies
und vom Sehvorgange; Dr. J. Wiirschmidt (Erlangen),
Roger Bacon's Art des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens, darge-
stellt nach seiner Schrift De Speculis.

XIV The Cipher of Roger Bacon

THIS is the title of a work published in Philadelphia by
the University of Pennsylvania Press and in London by
Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press in 1928. It
consists of certain literary remains left by William Romaine
Newbold, Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy in
the University of Pennsylvania, which literary efforts were
edited with a foreword and notes by Roland Grubb Kent,
Professor of Comparative Philology in the same university.

The latter has explained the title of the work and how it
came to be written.

In 1912 a famous collector of manuscripts, by name Mr.
Wilfrid M. Voynich, who was on a visit to Europe, purchased
some ancient illuminated manuscripts, among which he
found one, less beautiful than the rest and written through-
out in cipher. It appeared to him to be the work of a natural
philosopher of the thirteenth century, since it was illustrated
by elaborate drawings, biological, astronomical and botanical.
The only scholars whose names occurred to him as being
capable of such work were Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon.

This treasure was shown both in Paris and in London, but
none came forward to decipher it, save only William New-
bold, who claimed later to have discovered the key from
certain Latin words upon the last page, which he rendered as
michi dabas multas portas, interpreted as meaning, Thou to
me gavest many doors, or gates. He also claimed, by means
of a simplified alphabet, to have worked out some indecipher-
able letters intermixed with the Latin words, and these he
resolved into the equivalent of the letters R.B. C O N I.

It was his opinion that the manuscript consisted of very
minute characters, taken from a form of shorthand known to,
and used by, the Greeks.

109

110 ROGER BACON

A reference which Newbold thought he had discovered was
one to the riots in Oxford in 1275, when the serfs, leaving
their masters, fled to the monasteries, near one of which was
stationed the friar, Roger Bacon. It was stated that the
friar abandoned his post to bring certain explosive materials
from the city, with which to produce a scare, pretending that
his mission was to fetch help for the wounded.

Other events of which the manuscript made mention were
the comet of 1273, the annular eclipse of 1290, the allocation
of the great nebula in Andromeda, the malady of Pope
Clement IV, and the instructions for producing metallic
copper.

It was the opinion of Newbold that Bacon was acquainted
with the subject of ciphers as methods of concealing a record,
and it was his suggestion that the work was undertaken
during the philosopher's long years of confinement, and
that its meaning was revealed to his disciple John. The latter
may have been the recipient of the precious document, which
at his death may have remained in the monastery with
which John had been associated.

Newbold believed Bacon, whom he termed in an interest-
ing outline of his life "The Forerunner of Modern Science",
to have been the maker and possessor of lenses and mirrors,
and also of a microscope and of a reflective telescope the
Perspective Glass. This would account, in Newbold's view,
for the designs in the manuscript of supposedly biological
processes and of astronomical diagrams.

Newbold worked from time to time at his task of decipher-
ing the manuscript, and in April 1921 he lectured in Phila-
delphia to the members of the College of Physicians, and
before the American Philosophical Society. The former
lecture was printed in the Transactions (1921) of the
College and R. G. Kent contributed a short description to
The Pennsylvanian Gazette of 27 May 1921.

From the printed lecture, from a history of the find contri-
buted by Mr. Voynich to the same volume of Transactions
and from manuscript and typed copies of Mr. Newbold's

IN LIFE AND LEGEND 111

notes, charts and papers, Kent has reconstructed the strange
story of the cipher said to be the work of Roger Bacon.

Having acquired the volume Mr. Voynich observed that
the cover bore on its front the date 1665 (or 1666), being the
date of a letter from an individual named Joannes Marcus
Marci to a person called Athanasius Kircher, presenting the
manuscript to him. The writer has been identified with the
Rector of Prague University, and the recipient of the gift
as a learned Jesuit scholar who has given his name to the
Kercherianum Museum in Rome.

The letter, having been translated, was found to contain a
reference to Dr. Raphael who was a teacher of the Bohemian
tongue at the court of Ferdinand III, and who stated that the
manuscript had been a gift to the Emperor Rudolph, a great
patron of the sciences of his time.

Upon its reception in America, the manuscript was found
to bear upon the margin of its first page the autograph of
Jacobus de Tepenecz, honoured by Rudolph, whose name
previously had been Horcicky, and whose signature may have
been added about 1608. The suggestion to be found in The
Cipher of Roger Bacon is that the manuscript came into the
possession of Jacobus from the hands of the Elizabethan
alchemist, Dr. John Dee.

Dee was an authority on Bacon and his works, and it is
thought that he presented to libraries on the Continent
manuscripts now retained in them. Dee was a friend of
Thomas Allen who had been acquainted with the ninth
Earl of Northumberland, and it is surmised that, during the
rifling of monasteries by John Dudley, Duke of Northumber-
land, collections may have passed into his hands and, pre-
sumably, from him to Dee, the wandering necromancer,
who may have made a present of the cipher manuscript to
the Emperor Rudolph.

From the possession of Kircher it is possible that the cipher
passed to one of the ruling families in Italy, remaining there
with others till it was discovered by Mr. Voynich.

Such is the strange story revealed by the publication of

112 ROGER BACON

The Cipher of Roger Bacon* to which all those interested in
the subject must be referred for explanations of Mr. New-
bold's methods. He claimed likewise to have deciphered the
so-called Vatican Document and the letter from Bacon to
Pope Clement IV, which was discovered by Professor Pierre
Duhem in 1909. This purports to show that the Pope's
malady was stone (in the bladder) for which Bacon tendered
medical advice.

1 Thorndike, op. cit., 767, refers to the suggestion that Roger Bacon
wrote in cipher, explaining that the idea is based on the supposition
that secret knowledge can be thus imparted and also concealed. It
may likewise have been resorted to in order to stress the importance
of the matter written in cipher.

EPILOGUE

THESE pages were completed before the publication in
1952 of Dr. Stewart C. Easton's Roger Bacon and His
Search for a Universal Science (Oxford, Basil Blackwell)
which he has termed "A Reconsideration of the Life and
Work of Roger Bacon in the Light of His Own Stated
Purpose".

In his penultimate paragraph, the author explains that he
has intended to place Roger Bacon, not so much in the frame-
work of history as in that of his own time, and to consider
him as a "person rather than as a phenomenon".

It appears to be Dr. Easton's view that, prior to sending his
works to the Pope, Bacon was an unimportant figure in his
century. The attention of the reader is called to conditions
existing in the Franciscan Order, and to the effect upon the
brethren of the prophecies of Joachim of Flora, a monk of
Calabria, whose series of books was known as the "Ever-
lasting Gospel" and who proclaimed three ages in the history
of humanity. Another book which influenced the Francis-
cans was the Introduction to the Eternal Gospel of Brother
Gerard of San Borgo, amplifying the prophecies of Joachim.
Dr. Easton suggests that Roger Bacon may have accepted the
teachings of these writers, and also the medieval belief that
knowledge acquired by revelation was not an alternative to
knowledge acquired through study and experience, but "an
essential part of it".

Bacon, according to his latest biographer, had been greatly
influenced by the work ascribed to Aristotle known as Secret
of secrets which states that all sciences contain hidden know-
ledge, vouchsafed only to those able to receive it. Knowledge,
for example, of the heavenly bodies had been granted to the
sons of Seth, and was indeed revealed knowledge, or wisdom.
Bacon's vision "most beautiful and magnificent" was that of a

H 113

114 ROGER BACON

universal knowledge, possible for a Christian, and capable of
being fostered, instead of neglected, by the Church. Dr.
Easton suggests that Roger deliberately joined the Francis-
cans from a desire for personal holiness, and to obtain those
requirements necessary to one who would receive and
promulgate this vision of a universal science.

The vision included the verification of knowledge through
experience, the synthesis, that is, co-ordination of all branches
and fields of scientific enquiry, which would interpret the
specialized findings of experts in each field, and use them to
the best possible advantage. Finally, these three "dignities"
of science were to be unified in a whole termed by Bacon
Moral Philosophy.

Dr. Easton accepts the rendering of "scientia experi-
mentalis" as the science of experience, rather than of experi-
ment, and he points out that the number of experiments
which could be made is limitless, but that such experimenta-
tion would be worthless unless it could be interpreted and
used.

In Appendix B the author expresses his opinion that the
unnamed "Master" attacked by Bacon was Albertus Magnus,
and in Appendix C Dr. Easton attributes to Bacon's author-
ship two fragments De sensu et sensato and an unnoticed
Treatise on Time and Motion. There is an impressive
bibliography and index.

APPENDIX I

NOTES ON j. s. BREWER'S EDITION

IN accordance with the proposal made 26 January 1857 by
the Master of the Rolls "for the publication of materials for
the History of this Country from the Invasion of the Romans
to the Reign of Henry VIII", J. S. Brewer, then Master of
the Rolls, edited three works of Roger Bacon, namely the
Opus tertium. Opus minus and Compendium philosophiae,
and these were "published by the authority of the Lords
Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury" according to the
arrangement agreed upon in 1857.

In accordance with this arrangement Brewer provided an
account of the MSS. which he edited, adding to his work "a
brief account of the life and times of the author, and any
remarks necessary to explain the chronology" as required for
The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland
during the Middle Ages.

The preface records the attitude of the papal legate, Guy
le Gros, or de Foulques, towards the barons and bishops of
England as given by Matthew of Westminster, and of his
interest in philosophy at a period when "nine-tenths of the
world were perfectly content with the gross ignorance in
which they were shrouded". It appears that R6mond de
Laon had mentioned the name of Bacon to the legate when
he was Bishop of Sabina, prior to his elevation to the papacy
as Clement IV. Brewer stresses the intense joy of the lonely
friar at receiving Clement's commission, which explains the
seemingly extravagant language in which Bacon replied to
the Pope's request. He stresses likewise the extreme difficulty
experienced by Roger in complying with the request, on
account of the impossibility of raising the necessary funds,
owing to his Franciscan vow of poverty. The point is raised
as to whether any repayment was ever made to Bacon for the

115

116 ROGER BACON

expenses he incurred in compiling his works and despatching
them to Clement.

Believing that the Opus tertium was "in tended to serve as a
preamble to the Opus majus and Opus minus", Brewer places
it first in his volume, and assigns the year 1267 as the date
when the three works were completed. Since the Opus
majus * 'embraced the entire scope of the physical sciences as
then understood", Brewer suggests that * 'nothing but the
force of his own genius and his unconquerable love of the
truth" enabled Bacon to overcome the obstacles in his path.

" Willingly do we taste of the tree of good and evil; slow
are we to taste the tree of life, to embrace the dignity of
virtue with a view to future happiness." This quotation
from the Opus majus seems a kind of text for the Christians
of his day, but, as Brewer states, with the death of Clement
IV, Bacon's hopes for "a papacy, splendid for peace, and the
regeneration of science" faded and died.

In his preface Brewer quotes a long passage from the Opus
tertium regarding alchemy, as follows:

"There is another science which treats of the generation
of things from their elements, and of all inanimate
things ... of which we find nothing in the books of
Aristotle; nor are the natural philosophers or any of the
Latins acquainted with these things. And as they are
ignorant of these things, they can know nothing of that
which follows in physics ; as of the generation of animate
things, as vegetables, animals and man. . . . And this
science is more important than all that have preceded,
because it is productive of more advantages. It not only
provides money for a state, but teaches the means of
prolonging life, so far as nature will allow it to be pro-
longed; for we die sooner than we ought for want of a
proper regimen in youth, and owing to diseased
constitutions derived from our fathers. But this twofold
science of alchemy is scarcely understood by any; for
although many throughout the world labour to make

APPENDIX I 117

metals and colours, few know how to make metals, and
still fewer to produce those things which avail for the
prolongation of life. There are very few who can distil
properly, or sublime, or calcine, or resolve, or perform
other operations of this kind."

Brewer points out the necessity of distinguishing between
the Compendium philosophiae and the Compendium studii
theologicae et per consequent philosophiae, which appeared
about 1292.

In his short sketch of Bacon's life he refers to the MS.
bearing the title Breve breviarum fratris Rogeri Bacon ex
dono Dei which he states "is said to have been written to
Raymund Galfridus".

Writing of the Brazen Head, Brewer mentions John Ernest
Burgravius as contending that the philosopher was * 'indebted
to celestial influences, and to the power of sympathy" for
these works. Brewer himself is of opinion that "the Devil
had nothing to do with them" but that "they were produced
by Bacon's great skill in mechanics, and his knowledge of the
powers of electricity" rather than "molten and forged in an
infernal furnace 77 . Brewer also alludes to John Picus, Count
of Mirandole, who distinguished two kinds of magic; the one
due to knowledge of natural causes and effects, and the other
to diabolical agency. He points out that the Greeks differenti-
ated these two by the employment of separate words, and
that both Bacon himself and William of Auvergne, Bishop of
Paris, also maintained this distinction.

Brewer identifies Bacon's promising pupil with John of
London.

Writing regarding the Compendium philosophiae Brewer
believes that Bacon intended to "undertake a work more
vast and complete than any he had yet meditated". He
states that a MS. in the British Museum (No. 8786) entitled
Baconis physica is the fourth part of this "encyclopaedical
work".

APPENDIX II

NOTE ON THE PAPACY DURING THE LIFE OF
ROGER BACON

WE are told by the article on the Papacy in the Encyclo-
pedia Britannica (Ludwig von Pastor, Ph.D.) that "the first
half of the thirteenth century may be regarded as the grand
epoch of medieval history' '.

One year after the birth of Roger Bacon, the Fourth
Lateran Council was summoned by Pope Innocent III to
discuss many important questions relating to the reform of the
Church. Innocent was a politician and an imperialist and
gained immense power.

Gregory IX [1227-1241] and Innocent IV, who became
Pope in 1243, seem to have been engaged in a struggle with
the Emperor Frederick II, who had been appointed by
Innocent III. It was during his papacy that the important
Council of Lyons took place in 1245, upon which occasion
Grosseteste, the pious and aged Bishop of Lincoln, 1 read aloud
to His Holiness and the assembled conclave, a copy of his
sermon rebuking the abuses of the Church in England, and

1 Stevenson, in his Life of Robert Grosseteste, states that Roger Bacon
constantly spoke of him as Saint Robert, and the rules which he
composed for the guidance of the widowed Margaret, Countess of
Lincoln, in the management of her estate were all called "Reules
of Seynt Robert" (p. 527).

Bacon's admiration for this great man cannot be wondered at,
since he found time, in addition to the fulfilment of his many
episcopal duties, to write "treatises on sound, motion, heat, colour,
form, angles, atmospheric pressure, poison, the rainbow, comets,
light, the astrolabe, necromancy and witchcraft". (See paragraph in
Chambers'* Biographical Dictionary, 1899.)

The astrolabe was an instrument used in the Middle Ages for
measuring the altitude of the sun and stars.

118

APPENDIX II 119

in his own diocese. (See Stevenson, op. cit.j for a full
account of the Council of Lyons.)

From 1261 the Pope was Urban IV, being succeeded by
Clement IV [1265-1268], the Pope most closely associated
with Bacon's trials and endeavours.

Next came Gregory X who was followed by Nicholas III
who died in 1281. Martin IV [1281-1285], Honorius
[1285-1287] and Nicholas IV [1288-1292] were the occupants
of the Holy See up to the time of the death of Roger Bacon.

APPENDIX III
LIFE OF GROSSETESTE BY SAMUEL PEGGE

WE are indebted to Samuel Pegge, LL.D. for The Life of
Robert Grosseteste, the celebrated Bishop of Lincoln. (Printed
by and for John Nichols, Printer to the Society of Anti-
quaries. 1793.)

This 'country clergyman' provides a gloomy background
to the thirteenth century of a Church subjected to the tyranny
of the Pope, particularly Innocent IV, with his ecclesiastical
appointments, his papal legates, his bulls and excommunica-
tions, and his never ending graspings of English monies for
his own purposes. One of his worst impositions was the filling
of English benefices by young Italians, quite unfitted for
their position and entirely unwelcome to Grosseteste.

The Europe of the century possessed, however, an implac-
able enemy to the papal rule in the person of Frederick II.
Pegge relates how, when an embassy of mendicant friars
besought the Emperor to desist from his "anger and malice* '
towards the Church, he reminded them of the disgraceful
manner in which the Church had "abused, defamed and
excommunicated him". There was no gainsaying these
charges (p. 105).

The Romish Church found itself opposed by an 'enemy'
of quite a different nature in the courageous Bishop of Lin-
coln, who did not hesitate to upbraid the Pontiff and resist
his encroachments.

Among the writers mentioned by Pegge who bore testi-
mony to the character of Grosseteste was Johannes Trithem-
ius Abbas (p. 99, Edit. Fabricii) well known in Europe for his
wide learning, occult wisdom, and alchemical teachings, who
is said by some to have instructed Paracelsus. He was Abbot
of Spandau.

120

APPENDIX III 121

Grosseteste 's knowledge of Greek is attributed to the
influence of the Bishop's master and instructor Nicholas the
Greek, who had been a student at Oxford and Paris before
becoming a monk at St. Albans. Samuel Pegge informs us
that some of the Jews resident in Oxford were employed to
teach their language, presumably Hebrew, to the students,
Jewish manuscripts being possibly available. Roger Bacon
mentioned among the very great and learned men who were
acquainted with Hebrew "Lord Robert Bishop of Lincoln
and Adam de Marisco".

These manuscripts seem to have been brought from France
and Italy to Paris where Grosseteste prosecuted his linguistic
studies, with the result that he was able to translate those
which he believed to be genuine. Roger Bacon stated that
this work was undertaken by the Bishop late in life. (See
Roger Bacon in Wood, 82.)

Pegge is of the opinion that:

4 'It was on account of his diving so deeply into some
curious subjects, into the causes of things and their
effects, together with his reputed skill in the mathe-
matics and his acquaintance with languages so rare and
uncommon as the Greek and Hebrew, that our academic
was esteemed by the vulgar and even by the ignorant
monks to be a magician . . . John Gower the poet calls
him expressly an astrologer . . . and Conrad Gesner says
in his Bibliotheque that Grosseteste actually wrote a book
on astrology and another on necromancy and sorcery. "

This quotation from Pegge is accompanied by a footnote
giving the reference as Goetia and also by a declaration that
the statement attributing the latter work to Grosseteste "is
absolutely false". Yet Pegge in his "Catalogue of the Bishop's
works" includes both De lapide philosophico, Liber I and
De necromantia et goetia, Liber I.

Pegge assumes that an astrologer meant "a person well-
versed in the planetary influences", and he considers the
story that Grosseteste, like Bacon, made a Brazen Head to be

122 ROGER BACON

"ridiculous". This may be, but may it not also be that the
ordinary layman or divine may fear, as dangerous, subjects
which to a Roger Bacon, a Grosseteste and a Trithemius, are
worthy of reasonable survey and examination?

Though so learned a bishop, Grosseteste did not think it
below his dignity to make a friend of the simple unlettered
Agnellus Pisanus, leader of the Franciscans, of whom Pegge
states that "they were used to ramble all the world over".
Another scholar "rambled" as far as Athens, bringing back
not only Greek manuscripts, such as The Testaments of the
Twelve Patriarchs but also, according to Pegge, the Greek
numerals. This was John de Basing or de Basingstoke, whom
Matthew Paris (upon whose records Pegge draws largely for
his information) considered a most learned man "a perfect
master of the Latin and Greek languages; and also an elo-
quent orator, a complete mathematician, a subtil philosopher
and a sound divine". He was learned in the Trivium
(grammar, logic, and rhetoric); and in the Quadriviwn
(arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy); these two sets
of studies were known as "the seven liberal sciences".

Grosseteste, had, at first, a high opinion of the friars, some
of whom, like the Dominican John de St. Giles, who attended
the Bishop fairly constantly and ministered to him in his
sicknesses, were skilled in medicine. Grosseteste's indigna-
tion, however, was very great when two Franciscans named
John and Alexander, acting as papal envoys, laid aside their
robes of poverty and "dressed themselves out with splen-
dour", taking upon themselves "all the state" pertaining to
the emissaries of the Pope.

What else could be expected of a regime of which the
Bishop exclaimed to the Pontiff on the occasion of his visit to
Lyons in 1248, "Oh! Money, Money, how prevalent art thou,
especially in the Court of Rome!"

Grosseteste died at Buckden hi Huntingdonshire 9 October
1253, and was buried at Lincoln, being succeeded by Peter, a
lecturer to the Franciscans, who later was promoted to a
see in Scotland,

APPENDIX III 123

Another contemporary of Grosseteste was Richard Fish-
acre, a Devonshire man who joined the Dominicans, and
after studying at Oxford, where he was renowned for his
learning, became a friend of Robert Bacon, whom Pegge
regards as probably the elder brother of Roger, not his uncle.

As for Roger himself, Pegge terms him in two places "a
person of nice and most delicate taste " with whom Thomas
Wallaeus, or Wallensis, Bishop of St. Davids, found special
favour. He also states that when Roger Bacon praises the
famous scholars of his time, it is always Grosseteste who
takes the lead.

APPENDIX IV
BACONIANA

ANTHONY WOOD, M.A. [1632-1695] was responsible in
the seventeenth century for several large volumes entitled
The History and Antiquities of the Colleges and Halls in the
University of Oxford. Printed at Oxford at the Clarendon
Press. Printed for the Editor (John Gutch, M.A.). 1785.

On page 39 of Volume I Wood referred to William Shir-
woode, stating that John Leland 1 asserts that Shirwoode was
Chancellor of Lincoln, and went on to say of Roger Bacon
that he "hath erred, who applauding the work of the said
Shirwoode by saying that he was wiser than Albertus Magnus,
and that no one was greater in philosophy than he, styles
him William Chancellor of Lincoln".

In 1889 the Clarendon Press printed for the Oxford
Historical Society A Survey of the Antiquities of the City of
Oxford, composed in 1661-5 by Anthony Wood, edited by
Andrew Clark, M.A.

In Volume I dealing with "The City and Suburbs" there
are two allusions only to Roger Bacon. The first concerns the
so-called Little Gate, wide enough for the passage of a cart,
with a footway through a door for pedestrians, the road
leading to the premises of the Friars Black and Grey.

Above it was a large room used by "scollers", and it is
said that a certain "Peter de Ewe, brother chamberlaine to
Thomas the ironmonger" was the recipient of 8 shillings
given at the Little Gate by the Preaching or Black Friars.

In a footnote to this statement we find the interesting
query, "Did not Roger Bacon take the hight of stars here?"
meaning, as we suppose, that the chamber was lofty enough
to make celestial observation possible (p. 252).

The second mention is of "a tower with a gate and common
1 John Leland (circa 15061552). Historian and antiquary.

124

APPENDIX IV 125

passage underneath 17 which existed in Oxford in Wood's time
and bore the name of "Fryer Bacon his study' '. Wood would
not vouch for the truth of this legend, but thought it likely
that Bacon did use the tower which he could reach from the
convent by a back way over the stream called Trillmill
(p. 246).

In Volume II the items concerning Bacon are more
numerous. Discussing the teachers in the Franciscan school,
Wood calls Roger "a great critick of his time concerning the
writings of such which were before and in his age". Simi-
larly, he stated that the scholars of Merton College called him
"Doctor Mirabilis" and that Bale 1 called him "praestigator".

Regarding the libraries of the Franciscans, Wood recorded
that, besides enjoying "the Capitonian library" (that is, the
library of Robert Grosseteste) u they were honoured with
that of the incomparable Fryer Roger Bacon, who wrote the
number of 100 treatises, as by Balaeus they are enumer-
ated".

When the Franciscan libraries decayed, apparently those of
Grosseteste and Bacon were sold, some of them, as we have
seen, to Dr. Thomas Gascoigne, so that "by the malice,
stealth, or slothful negligence of the brethren" the collection
of priceless volumes was broken up.

Later, Wood declared that a contemporary and intimate
acquaintance by name John Twynus, writing of Grosseteste's
works, and also those of "that incomparable mathematician
Roger Bacon" showed how the ignorant friars, supposing the
volumes to treat of necromancy, fastened them "with long
nailes to the desks" so that they "among dust and mothes"
utterly perished.

On page 401 Wood quoted Balaeus as describing Bacon as a
magician of necromancy, not by the power of God, but of
evil spirits".

Among Roger's treatises Wood mentioned "that excellent
tract" entitled De victoria Christi contra Antichristum, and
suggested that on account of "several errours contained
1 John Bale (1495-1563). A historian of English literature.

126 ROGER BACON

therein" (probably errors of doctrine) he was imprisoned for
several years by the Pope Nicholas IV.

Dealing with the history of the Franciscan Church, Wood
relates that, in his day, he heard that Bacon's tombstone had
been dug up sixty-three years before, with an inscription
thereon, whilst his last reference is to that "decrepit building"
known by tradition as "Roger Bacon's and Thomas Bongai's
Study".

According to Wood, Robert was the name both of Roger's
uncle and his brother, while there appear to have been two
persons of the name of Fisacre. Among Bacon's pupils he
mentions Thomas Docking and John Peckham.

APPENDIX V
THE JOURNEY OF WILLIAM RUBRUCK

THE substance of what Roger Bacon learned from William
of Rubruck on his return from Central Asia may be gathered
in part from The Journal of Friar William de Rubruque in a
volume published by Macmillan and Co., Limited, in 1900
together with The Travels of Sir John Mandeville and The
Voyage of Johannes de Piano Carpini "unto the Northeast
Parts of the World in the Year of Our Lord, 1246". It may
be found in full in The Journey of William of Rubruck to
the Eastern Parts of the World, 1253-5 as narrated by
himself. This fascinating, detailed and annotated account has
been translated from the Latin, and edited with an intro-
ductory notice by William Woodville Rockhill, and issued in
London by The Hakluyt Society. (Second series, No. IV.)

The story was addressed "To his most sovereign, and most
Christian Lord Lewis, by God's grace the renowned king of
France" to whom "the meanest of the Minorites' order,
wisheth health and continual triumph in Christ".

Louis IX, called "Saint Louis", was in Cyprus in 1248,
where he received an embassy from a Mongol general, with
letters which were translated by a Friar Andrew, who knew
Arabic and had been with Friar Ascelin's mission in 1247 to
the Mongol commander-in-chief . William was with the king
at this time, and in 1249 he went with Louis and the crusad-
ing forces to Egypt and busied himself in making prepara-
tions for a venture which, it was hoped, would bring peace,
if not friendship between the Tartars and the West.

Our knowledge of events at this period regarding the
Tartars, whose origin is obscure, is derived from a letter sent
by the Emperor Frederick II to Henry III, which recorded
the Mongol invasion of Europe into Southern Russia, and

127

128 ROGER BACON

which was followed in turn by the overthrow of the
Hungarians, Poles and Bohemians. But Europe was torn by
the dissensions between Pope and Emperor, and the invasions
came to an end with the deaths of both Gregory IX and the
Mongol chieftain Ogodai, whose decease required the election
of a new Ruler at a vast concourse to be held at Karakorum,
in Mongolia.

Friar William was acquainted, not only with the previous
mission of Friar Ascelin, but also with the experiences of
Friar John of Piano Carpini, 1 who had left Lyons in 1245 on
a journey to the court of Kuyuk Khan, and returned safely
in 1247. He gained fresh information at Constantinople,
from the Armenian traders who resorted thither, and,
accompanied by Friar Bartholomew of Cremona, arrived
after two months at the court (ordu) of Sartach, the son of
Batu, the Mongol commander-in-chief.

Sartach had been reported to be a Christian, to whom the
friars delivered letters from the Emperor of Constantinople,
but Sartach made it plain that he would himself take no
action, but would send the messengers to his father. Batu,
in his turn, sent the friars to the Emperor Mangu Khan,
whose court was reached after an immense journey of cold
and hardship, in January 1254. Here they remained for
some weeks and William records that "on Palm Sunday
(5 April) we were near Caracorum". It was not till Pentecost
(31 May), that Mangu returned from his camp outside
Karakorum to the city itself, where he held a great Court,
after which he handed over to Friar William the letters
replying to the King of France. These being interpreted,
William himself wrote down their tenor, and departed
shortly afterwards, leaving Bartholomew in Central Asia,

1 The Voyage of Johannes de Piano Carpini. (The Macmillan Co.
Ltd. 1900.) Bacon was in all probability acquainted with Carpini's
own account of his journey to the court of Kuyuk Khan, which he
undertook in 1245. Starting from Padua he and his Polish com-
panion, Friar Benedict, reached Karakorum, and returned to Lyons
in 1247,

APPENDIX V 129

since he was so weakened by starvation and cold that the
return journey was impossible for him.

In two months and two days William and his companions
reached Batu's camp, exactly a year after leaving it, and
continued the homeward journey on 16 October, finally
arriving in Cyprus and proceeding to Antioch, which was
reached on 29 June 1255. To his disappointment William
was directed by the Provincial in Tripoli to remain there,
instead of coming to present his report in person to King
Louis. In his last paragraph the friar expresses the hope of
being permitted to see him "and those particular friends . . .
in your kingdom". Among his friends he surely numbered
his fellow-Minorite Roger Bacon.

William Woodville Rockhill reckons this French explorer's
journey as totalling about 10,000 miles, and the distance from
Batu's camp on the Volga to Karakorum as about 2,600 miles.
lie states that William accomplished this distance in 70 days;
therefore he suggests an average of 37 J miles per day.

As recorded by the traveller himself, the first part of the
distance to Batu's ordu was undertaken, mistakenly, in ox-
carts; otherwise relays of horses were used all through the
day, and sometimes on into the night. From his own
account, William appears to have been an intrepid horseman,
and to have combined courage and courtesy with shrewdness
and caution in his dealings with the Tartar authorities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adamson, Robert, Roger Bacon: the Philosophy of Science in

the Middle Ages. (London. Simpkin Marshall & Co.) 1871.
Brewer, J. S., Fr. Rogeri Bacon: Opera inedita. (Rolls Series,

Vol. I. London. Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts.)

1859.
Bridges, John Henry, Life and Work of Roger Bacon. (Oxford.

Clarendon Press.) 1914.

Cambridge Medieval History, Vols. VI and VII.
Charles, Emile, Roger Bacon: Sa vie, ses ouvrages, et ses

doctrines d'apres les textes inedits. (Paris. Librarie de L.

Ilachette et Cie.) 1861.

Crombie, A. C., Robert Grosseteste and the origins of experi-
mental science. 1100-1700. (Oxford. Clarendon Press.) 1953.
Crowley, Theodore, O. F. M., Roger Bacon. The problem of

the soul in his Philosophical Commentaries. (Dublin. James

Duffy & Co., Ltd.) 1950.
Easton, Stewart C., Roger Bacon and his Search for a Universal

Science. (Oxford. Basil BLickwell.) 1952.
Green, John Richard A Short History of the English People.

(London. J. M. Dent. Introduction dated 1915.)
Greene, Robert, The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and

Friar Bungay.
Little, A. G., The Grey Friars in Oxford. (Oxford. Clarendon

Press.) 1892.
Little, A. G., Roger Bacon. Henrietta Hertz Trust Lecture on

a Master Mind. (British Academy. Humphrey Milford.)

1928.
Little, A. G. and E. Withington, De retardatione accidentium

senectuds. (Oxford. Clarendon Press.) 1928.
Newbold, William Romaine, and Kent, Roland Grubb, The

Cipher of Roger Bacon. (London. Oxford University Press.)

1928.
Pegge, Samuel, The Life of Robert Grosseteste. (London.

John Nichols.) 1793.
Rockhill, William Woodville, The Journey of William of

Rubruck. (London. Hakluyt Society, Second Series, No. IV.)

130

BIBLIOGRAPHY 131

Rubruck, William of, The Journey of Friar William de

Rubruque. (London. Macmillan & Co., Ltd.) 1900.
Russell, W. Clark, The Book of Authors. (London. Frederick

Warne & Co. Chandos Library, new edition.)
Singer, D. W., Alchemical Writings attributed to Roger Bacon.

(From Speculum, Journal of Medieval Studies, Vol. VII, 80.

Cambridge, Massachusetts. Medieval Academy of America.)

1952.
Smalley, Beryl, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages.

(Oxford. Clarendon Press.) 1941.
Steele, Robert, Roger Bacon and the State of Science in the

Thirteenth Century. (From Studies in the History and

Method of Science, Vol. II, edited by Charles Singer.

Oxford. Clarendon Press.) 1921.
Stevenson, Francis Seymour, M.P., Robert Grosscteste.

(London. Macmillan Co., Ltd.) 1899.
Thorns, William J., Early Prose Romances, Vol. I. (London.

Nattali and Bond. Second edition, enlarged.) 1858.
Thornclike, Lynn, A History of Magic and Experimental

Science during the first thirteen centuries of our era. (New

York. The Macmillan Co.) 1925.
Ward, Adolphus William, Old English Drama. (Oxford.

Clarendon Press. Fourth edition, imp 1921. First published,.

1879, fourth edition, 1921, new impression.) 1927.
Wood, Anthony, The History and Antiquities of the Colleges

and Halls in the University of Oxford. (Oxford. Clarendon

Press. Printed for the Editor, John Gutch.) 1786.
Wood, Anthony, A Survey of the Antiquities of the City of

Oxford. (Composed in 1661-5. Oxford. Clarendon Press

for the Oxford Historical Society.) 1889.

INDEX

A,

LBINGDON, EDMUND OF, 84
Achilles, 74

"active intelligence," 17, 59
Adam de Mansco, 13, 14, 19,

29, 44, 63, 121
Adelard of Bath, 41, 48
Adsygerius, 18
Agnellus, Pisaiius, 51, 122
Agriculture, 82
Agrippa Cornelius, 71
Ahmed, 98

Ailly, Cardinal Pierre D', 105
Albert the Great (of Cologne),

viii, 16, 17, 26, 38, 48, 52, 53,

68, 70, 96, 102, 109, 114, 124
Albumazar, 28
Alchemy, 61, 66, 106
Alchemy, definition of, 1067
Alder, Elizabeth, 71
Alexander of Hales, 16, 20, 38,

48, 57

Alexander the Great, 47, 67
Alexandria, 62
Alfarabihs, 29
Algaxel, 62
Alhazcn, 102-3
Allen, Thomas, 33, 111
Alpetragius, 45
Alph-arabius, 62, 103
Amaury, de Montfort, 18, 55
American Philosophical Society,

110

Amiens, Library of, 33
Analytics, Posterior, 85
Analytics, The Second, 48
Andrew, Friar, 127
Andrew of St, Victor, 89, 90, 91
Andromeda, Nebula of, 110
Anglicus, Bartholomew, 68

Annns mirabilis, 87

Anselrn, 48

Anthony, St., 55

Anti-Christ, ix, 50, 95-6

Antioch, 129

Antivari, 79

"Ape of Aristotle," 17

Apollo, 75

Aquinas, Thomas, 16, 38, 55, 57,

102

"Acmitaiiian, The," 70
Arabian philosophers, xii, 17, 64
Archbishop of Canterbury, 14
Archbishops' Library, 34
Archimedes, 62
Aristotle, \ii, 16, 17, 21, 29, 38,

42, 61-2, 67, 82, 84, 85, 86,

98, 106, 113
Arzacher, 45
Asccllin, 1'Yiar, 127-8
Ashmolcan Museum, 34
Asia, Central, 79, 80, 127
Astrology, 96
Astronomy, 64
Augustine, St., 91
Aurjllac, 26
Auvergne, 26
Auvergne, William of, 57, 104,

117

Avcrroes, 17, 61, 84, 106
Avicerma, 17, 29, 35, 61, 67, 86,

98

B,

JACON, ROBERT, 15, 123, 126
Baghdad, 29, 45
Balaeus, ix, 18, 125
Bale, John, ix, 125
Balliol, Library of, 27

132

INDEX

133

Barology, 82

Bartholomew, Friar, of Cremona,

128

Bath, 14, 54
Batu, 79, 80, 128-9
Baur, Dr. Ludwig, 108
Beehm, R., 30

Bedc, The Venerable, 48, 105
Benedict, Friar, 79, 128
Berthold, Friar (of Regeiisburg),

104

Bibliotheca Hiberno Britannica, x
Bibhotheque Natioiuilo, 56
Bodleian Library, 27, 55, 55
Boethius, 62
Bokhara, 29

Bonaventura, St., 20-21, 21, 56
Bonneceor (Bonecor), Sir

William, 22
Borel, Pierre, 46
Bose, Professor, 46
Brasenoso College, 59, 76-7
Brasen Nose Hall, 77
Brazen Head, 69-70, 72, 75-6,

107-8, 117, 121
Breve Breviarum, 67, 117
Bridgwatcr, 56
British Museum, 27, 35, 38, 56,

117

Broun, Richard, 51
Browne, Sir Thomas, 70
Buclulen, 122
Buddhist Faith, 80
Bungay, Friar Thomas, 21, 24,

56, 71-2, 74-6, 126
Burgravius, John Ernest, 117
Butler, 70

C,

CAESAR, JULIUS, 75, 77, 81
Caius College, 56
Calabria, 113

Calendar, 57-8, 64, 81, 83
Cambridge, 30, 56, 87, 89
Campano of Navarre, 18

Canon Law, 40, 83, 89

Canon of Medicine, 29

Capitonian Library, 125

Cardan, Jerome, 71

Carpini, Joannes de Piano (or

Piano) xi, 79, 128
Castile, King of, 70, 75
Cave, William, x, 18
Chaldea, 98
Chapter of Paris, 25
Charles, Emile, vii, ix, x, 1819,

21, 26-8, 50, 52, 56, 58, 42-4,

46-7, 56, 60-1, 66-7, 101
Chronicle of the XXIV Generals, 24
Chronology, 64
Church, Catholic, 81
Cicero, 20, 62, 86
Civil Law, 40, 85
Columbus, Christopher, 105
Coiubachii Johanms, 52
Cornrnunia tnathernatica, 92
Commuma naturaliiim, 55, 44
Compendium philosopJiiac, 356,

58, 40, 90, 115, 117
Compendium studii theologiae, 36,

117

Compendium theologiae, 25, 34, 37
Computus naturahuni) 34, 36, 60,

64

Confessio Arnantis, 70
(Congress of Faiths, 80
Constantinople, 80, 128
Contra Necromanticos, 28
Cordova, 17
Cornwall, 48

Corpus Christi College, 33, 82 ~
Cor rector i a , 92
Cosmos, 101

Cotton, Sir Robert Bruce, 33
Cottoman Library, 35
Cousin, M. V., ix, x
Crimea, 80

Crow ley, Theodore, viii
Crusades, xi, 74, 95, 104
Cyprus, 127, 129

134

ROGER BACON

D,

"ALMATIA, 79, 94
Damascenus, 98
Damascus, 29, 62
Dauphine, 30
De Anima, 16
De Caelestibus, 33, 64
De Causis, 33
De communibus mathematicae, 46,

63
De comervatione sanitatis et juven-

tutis praeservatione autore Roger o

Bacono vel Bacuno, 34
Dee, David (of Radik), 82
Dee, Dr. John, ix, 30, 33, 81, 111
De erroribus medicorum, 100
D. Fratris Roger Bacone de naturis

metallorum in ratione alchemica

et artificiali trans format ione, 32
De magnete, 19, 27
De mirabili potestate artis et naturae

ubi de philosophorum lapide, 30,

47

Democritus, 62, 64
De multiplicatione, 32
De rerum germinibus, 35
De retardatione accidentium senectu-

tis, 98, 100
De sept em peccatis studii theologiae,

55

De somniis et vigiliis, 84
Desroches, Pierre, 15
De vegetabilis, 33
De victoria Christi contra Anti-
* christum, 125
Digby, Sir Kenelm, x, 33
Dingwall, Dr. E. J., vii
Dnieper, River, 79
Doberer, K. K., ix, 60
Dobravius, 71
Docking, Thomas, 93, 126
"Doctor admirabilis," 102
"Doctor irrefragible," 16
"Doctor mirabilis," 125

"Doctor, the seraphic/' 20
"Doctor, The universal," 16
Domiiiicians, 17, 29, 52, 92
Don, river, 79, 80, 123
Douai, Library of, 33
Dover, 51
Dudley, John, 111
Duhem, Pierre, 106, 112
Dunbar, 71
Dunstan, Abbot, 31
Durham, Bishop of, 55
Durham, Library of, 27

E,

JDWARD VI, 30

Edward, Prince, 75

Edward II, 70

Egypt, 64, 127

Eleanor, Queen, 72

Elements, The, 48, 85

Elixir, 31, 66, 100, 106

Elizabeth, Queen, 30, 81

Ellis, Robert Leslie, 108

Emerald Table, 68

Empedocles, 62

Epistola de secretis, 107

Epistola Petri Peregrini de Mari-
court ad Sygerium de Fontan-
coiirt, Militemj de Magnete, 17,
18

Euclid, 48, 62

"Everlasting Gospel," 113

Ewe, Peter de, 124

Ezechial, 91

F

ERDINAND III, 111

Ferdinand and Isabella, 105
Finee, Oronce, 50
Fishacre, Richard, 123
Fitsacre, Richard, 13, 21
Flanders, 80
Flogel, 71

Foulques (or Fulcode) Guido, 21,
115

INDEX

135

Francis of Assisi, 20, 51, 59,

79
Franciscan Order, ix, 19-20, 29,

87
Franciscans, xii, 17, 19, 24, 51-

5, 56-7, 113-14, 122, 125
Frankfurt, 32
Frederick II, xi, 61, 75, 104-5,

118, 120, 127
Frier Bacon, his discovery of the

miracle of art, nature and magic,

30
Friers of Berwick, The, 71

HAL

G.

'ALEN, 98, 99

Gascoigne, Dr. Thomas, 27, 125

Gasquet, Cardinal, 105

Gaufredi, Raymond, 25, 117

Gaul, 77

General Chapter, 25

Geography, 65

Geometria, 17

Gerard of San Borgo, 113

Gerbert, 26, 70

Geschichte der Hofmarren, 71

Gesner, Conrad, 121

Gesta Romanonun, 71

Glastonbury, 31

Gloss ordinaria, 89

Gloucestershire, 16

Goetia, 121

Goldmakers, The, ix, 60, 67

Goudge, Elizabeth, 14

Gower, John, 121

Grammar, 63, 103, 105

Greece, 98

Greeks, 62, 64, 79, 109

Greene, Robert, 75

Grosseteste, Robert, 13-14, 21,
26-7, 39, 51, 54-5, 57, 63-4,
70, 72, 87, 118, 120-3, 125

Grove, Francis, 71

Gunpowder, 46, 107

ALLAM, HENRY, 94
Haly Regalis, 98
Haly Super Tegni, 98
Hamburg, 30
Hapsburg, 75
Harleian Library, 34
Harley, Robert, 34
Hebrews, 64, 79
Hector, 74

Hendover, Master John, 63
Henri de Villeine, 70
Henrietta Hertz Trust, 94
Henry III, 13, 15, 72,75, 127
Hercules, 73

Hermann, of Germany, 106
Hime, Lieut. -Colonel H. W. L.,

107

Hipparchus, 62
Hirsch, S. A., 105
Hist. Bohem., 71
Histoire des Sciences mathematiques

en Italic, 19
Histoire literaire de la France, ix,

30
Historia Mongolorum quos nos

Tartar os appellamus, 79
Historia Regium Anglorum, 57
Horcicky, 111
Hubert de Burgh, 15
Hugh of St. Victor, 48, 89
Humbold, M. de, 18
Humboldt, Baron von, 101
Hungary, 15
Hungary, Queen of, 99
Huntingdonshire, 122
Hysperian Tree, 73

I

LCHESTER, 13, 57

Imago Mundi, 68, 105
Imperial Library, 17, 32
Imperial Museum, 31

136

ROGER BACON

Incipit liber primus Communiwn
naturalium fratris Rogeri B., 33

Intellectus agens^ 97, 104

Introduction to the Eternal Gospel ,
113

Isaac, 98

Iscalis, 13

JACOB, MASTER, 15

Jaffe, E., 92

Jean de Fidanza, 20

Jean de Garlande, 48, 104

Jean de la Rochelle, 16, 20

Jean de Mehun, 30

Jean de St. Giles, 122

Jebb, Samuel, x, 18, 30, 32,

64

Jerome d'Ascoli, 24, 25
Jerome, St., 44, 90, 91, 92
Jerusalem, 62

Jerusalem, The Station of, 70
Joachim of Flora, 113
John de Lacy, 75
John of Basing, 122
John of London, 18, 23, 117
John of Paris, 32
John Peckham, 18, 56, 126
John II, 70
Jones, H. Gordon, 78
Journal des Savants, ix, x
Julian the Apostate, 73

A.RA KORUM, 79, 80, 128,
129

Kelly, Edward, 31
Khan, the Tartar, 79, 80
Khirghiz Steppes, 62, 79
Kiev, 79

Kircher, Athanasius, 111
Kitchen, the Abbot's, 31
Kuyuk, Khan, xi, 79, 128

92

MARE, WILLIAM DE, 56,

Lambeth Library, 34

Lancaster, 87

Lateran Council, Fourth, 118

Le Clerc, M. V., x, 30

Leicester, 55

Leland, John, ix, x, 124

Libellus Rogerii Baconi Angli
doctissimi mathematici et Medici
de retardis accident ibus et de
sensibus conservandis, 31

Liber sex scientiarum, 35

Liber Tartar orwn, 79

Lincoln, Bishop of, 14, 26, 51,
63, 72, 118, 120, 121

Lincoln Cathedral, 18

Lincoln, Library of, 27

Logic, 35

Lombard, Peter, 48, 51-2

London, 30, 31

"Lord of experimentation," 18

Louis IX, xi, 21,80, 104, 127

Lowestoft, 24

Lucera, 27

Lyons, 79, 122, 128

Lyons, Council of, 118, 119

M,

LADRID, 70
Magic, 76, 107
Magistery, The, 107
Malmesbury, William of, 70
Mandonnet, Fr., viii
Mangu Khan, 128
Marci, Joannes Marcus, 111
Marsh, Adam, 21, 52, 54, 56, 63
Mary, of England, 30
Master Hugo, 48, 85
Master Nicholas, 18, 106
Master Peter, 18-20, 46, 51, 67
Mathematics, 63, 88, 103

INDEX

137

Mazarin Library, 32

Mead, Richard, x

Means of Retarding the Accidents

of Old Age, 25
Mecca, 62

Merton College, 59, 125
Mesopotamia, 45
Metamorphoses, 42
Metaphysics, 84
Miles, 71-4, 76
Minors, Order of, 51, 53
Miroir de Maistre Jean de Mehun,

30

Mirror of Alchemy, 30, 46, 66
Mohammedans, 62
Mongols, 79, 127-8
Moral Philosophy, 78-9, 81, 114
Mortlake, 31
Muir, M. Pattison, 106-7

Optica Thesaurus, 102

Optics, 60, 71, 87, 103

Opus Majus, ix, x, 22-3, 28, 30,

32, 34-7, 39, 47-8, 61, 64-5,

76, 78-82, 87-8, 95-7, 102-3,

105, 116
Opus minus, 20, 23, 27, 34-6, 49-

50,82, 91, 95, 115-6
Opus tertium, 19-20, 23, 33-37,

40-41, 44, 64, 67-8, 83, 91,

94, 96, 107, 115-16
Ovid, 42

Owen's College, 101
Oxford, 13-15, 19-21, 23, 26-7,

31, 34, 41, 51, 54-9, 60, 70,

72, 75-6, 78, 84, 87, 104, 106,

109, 120-1, 124-5
Oxus, 62

N

22

ARBONNE, ARCHBISHOP OF,

Narbonne, General Chapter of,

58

Naude, x, 26
Necquam, Alexander, 48
Necromancy, 96
Nicaea, 62

Nicholas, the Greek, 120
Noe, 91

Nominalism, 43
Northumberland, Duke of, 111
Norwich, 56
Nottingham, 24
Novum Organum, 88

O,

r CCULTA, 99-100
Offendicula, 102
Ogodai (Ogdai), xi, 128
On the Prognostication of the
Stars, 28

JLADUA, 55, 128
Papal Legate, 22
Paracelsus, 17, 29, 43, 76, 98-9,

120
Paris, 15-17, 19-20, 32, 34, 41,

45, 51, 56-7, 85, 89, 95, 104,

109, 117, 120-1

Paris, Matthew, 15, 16, 88, 122
Pastor, Ludwig von, 118
Pastoureaux, 15, 57
Pauli, Dr., 70
Pelzer Monsignor, 95
Perspective Glass, 69, 70, 74,

76, 110

Perspective, The, 32, 36, 102
Perugia, 22
Peter, of Trou, 94
Petrus Peregrinus (de Mari-

court), 18, 27, 67
Petit, John, 71
Philadelphia, 109-10
Philip de Greve, 95
Philology, 103, 105
Philosopher's Egge, 107

138

ROGER BACON

Philosophy, 103

Physics, 65

Picardy, 19

Picavet Francois, 105

Picus, John, 117

Pierre de Maricourt, 29

Pinkerton's Scotch Poems, 71

Pits, John, ix, 18

Plato, 29, 62

Pliny, 65

Plumptre, Dean, 56

Poland, King of, 99

Pompey, 73

Pope Clement IV, 21-3, 57, 60-

1, 78, 95, 104, 110, 112, 115-

16, 119

Pope Gregory VII, 77
Pope Gregory IX, 14, 118, 128
Pope Gregory X, 24, 35, 119
Pope Gregory XIII, 64, 81
Pope Honorius, 119
Pope Innocent III, 118
Pope Innocent IV, 16, 79, 118-19
Pope Martin IV, 119
Pope Nicholas III, 25-6, 31, 119
Pope Nicholas IV, 25, 119, 125
Pope Sylvester II, 26, 70
Pope Urban IV, 119
Prague University, 111
Preachers, The, 55
Privation, 43
Proprietatibus rerum, 68
Provincial, 16, 51, 129
Ptolemy, 45, 62
Pythagoras, 43

UADEIVIUM, THE y 122
Quaestiones, 95

Realism, 43

"Regent in Holy Scriptures," 52

Regent-masters, 52, 59

Remond de Laon, 22, 57, 115

Retarding of Old Age, The, 36

Reules of Seynt Robert, 14, 118

Rhazes, 98

Rhodes, 62

Rich, Edmund, 13-4, 21

Richard O'Eden, 33

Richard of Cornwall, 48

Richard of St. Victor, 48, 91

Robert of Lincoln, 29, 38, 44, 52,

62
Rogeri Eaconis Angli viri eminentis*

simi Perspectiva, 32
Roger Bacon opus majus ad

Clementem Papam, 32
Roman Law, 89
Rome, 24, 111
Rous, John, 57-8
Royal Library, 34
Rubruck (Rubruquis), William

of, 80, 95, 127-9
Rudolph, Emperor, 111
Rufus, Richard, 56
Russia, Southern, 79, 127

RA,

MNBOW, 65, 103
Raphael, Dr., Ill
Ravenna, Archbishop of, 26

, BISHOP OF, 22, 57, 115
Sandys, Sir John Edwyn, 108
Sanioris medicinus magistri D.

Rogere Baconis Angli de arte

thymiae script a, 31
Saracens, 50
Saracen's Head, The, 71
Sareshull, Alfred de, 67
Sartach, 128
Scholasticism, 101
Scot, Michael, 61
Scriptum Principale, 81
Secretwn secretorum, 67, 98
Selden, John, x
Seneca, 20-1, 29, 61-2, 86

INDEX

139

Sentences, 51, 56, 61

Seth, sons of, 113

Shepherds' Crusade, The, 15

Siberia, 80

Sicily, "Dumb Ox of", 16

Smith, David Eugene, 106

Socrates, 29

Somerset, 13

Soomer, John, 56

Sosigenes, 81

Spain, 29, 64

Spandau, 120

Specula mathematica, 32

Speculum Alchimiae, 31, 67, 106-7

Speculum Astronomiae, viii

St. Albans, 15

St. John's College, 30

St. Sophia, 80

St. Victor, Abbey of, 89

Steinschneider, 106

Stephen, of Bohemia, 79

Stradbrook, 14

Stratford -le -bow, 30

Suffolk, 14, 56

Summa Theologiae, 1617, 38

Sydenham, Thomas, 99

Sygerus, de Fontancourt, 27

Syriac versions, 103

JLABERNACLE, THE, 91
Tanner, Thomas, x
Tartars, 50, 80, 96, 127
Tempier, Etienne, 24
Temple, of Solomon, 91
Tepenecz, Jacobus de, 111
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,

122

Teutonic knights, 104
Theatrum chemicum, 30
Thebit Ben Corat, 45
Thomas de Saint David, 29, 58,

123
Thomas, of York, 52

Thomas, the ironmonger, 124
Thorndike, Lynn, vii, viii
Toledo, 106

Toledo, Tables of, 33, 45, 58
Tractatus fratris Rogeri de genera-

tione specierum, 32
Tractatus magicki Rogeri Bacon de

multiplicatione specierum, 32
Transmutation, 66
Trillmill, 125
Trismegistus, 48
Trithemius, Abbot Johannes,

120, 122
Tripoli, 129
Trivium, The, 122
True Astronomy, 28
Turkestan, Eastern, 79
Tuscany, 20
Twyiie, Bryan, 82
Twyne (Twynus) John, 58, 125

r ANDERMAST, 71, 73-5

Vatican Library, 95

Venice, 30, 32

Vercelli, 55

Verification, 103

Veritas in radice, 91

Vincent, of Beauvais, 68

Vindica te tibi, 33

Virgil, 77

Vogl, Dr. Sebastian, 108

Volga, river, 79-80, 129

Voynich, Wilfrid M., 109, 110

Vulgar Errors, 70

Vulgate, The, 91-3, 105

w,

'ADDING, LUKE, ix, 18
Wallensis, Thomas, 58, 123
Warburg Institute, Journal of, 92
Wax-doctor, 52
Wearmouth, 55

140 ROGER BACON

Whewell, Dr., 87-8, 108
White, Edward, 71 \

Wiedermann, Dr. Eilhard, 108 ,/l.ENOPHON, 62
William of Shirwood (Shir-

woode), 18, 124

Winchester, Bishop of, 15 ^_
Worcester, 55 Y

Work, The Great, 46, 66 J.EPES, 70

Wurschmidt, Dr. J., 108 York, Treasurer of, 55