Fryar Roger Called Bachon

A scholar-monk who envisioned an Academy of Science, Bacon’s ideas were far ahead of his time and ran counter to the Church’s doctrine.

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by Dianna L. Dodson

Within the studious atmosphere of their library were gathered the brethren of the Oxford Franciscans. The friars watched as pages were torn from a leather-bound manuscript and nailed to the plans of the library shelves. When the last vellum sheet of the contraband work had been hung to yellow and fade, the friars left the room in silent procession. One or two of the younger novitiates had not known Brother Roger Bacon in his days of fiery verbal assault against mediaeval education and educators. Perhaps they paused to glance at his scrawled handwriting on the desiccated pages and wondered at the nature of his crime. He had died only that month, June 1292.

With the post mortem rejection by his home convent began the web of legend that has surrounded Roger Bacon for seven centuries. Popular history has pictured him as a secretive necromancer, while scholars have classed him as everything from a visionary to a cranky old man.

Bacon is thought to have been born in the West of England between the years of 1210 and 1215. His family is thought to have been of substantial wealth and social position. Supporters of Henry III during his struggles with his barons, they several times purchased the release of Roger’s elder brother from the hands of the King’s enemies. Another brother, says Roger, was a scholar like himself. A family with resources enough to support two sons through a university education and to repeatedly ransom a third was most likely able to provide a tutor for Roger’s earliest educations.

Having completed his elementary education at home, the 13 year old Roger was sent to the young university at Oxford. For six years he faithfully attended lectures in the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and the quadrivium (music, astronomy, geometry, arithmetic). His texts were selected from among the few ancient authors whose works were known to the 13th Century, and were supplemented by the commentaries of well-known mediaeval scholastics. His command of the “arts” and “sciences” was further developed by means of philosophical disputation with his peers and professors. Through this programme of lectures and debates, he learned that the study of astronomy included not just observation of the stars, but also a knowledge of world geography. His teachers convinced him that the world was round, as could be deduced by the curved shadow that it cast on the moon during an eclipse. In his logic class he discovered that the universe was infinite for no finite cosmos could contain an infinite God.

In 1233, Bacon received his baccalaureat; an additional year of study entitled him to wear the hood and gown of the Master of Arts. He was now qualified, in fact required, to teach, and shortly thereafter presented his first lectures in philosophy at Oxford. He did not, however, follow the usual course of action for students of his day, the pursuit of a doctorate in theology. His interests were instead captured by the progressive work of several of his fellow faculty members.

Robert Grossteste served as Chancellor of the University until 1229. Though Bacon may or may not have heard him lecture, his written works greatly influenced the younger man, who later described him as “perfect in all knowledge.” This praise was shared with Adam Marsh, who was not only a famed theologian but, according to Bacon, excelled in the study of mathematics and languages. Both Grossteste and Marsh encouraged their students to seek empirical as well as philosophical knowledge of the world around them and both hoped to use mathematics to express their observations.

The science of “experiment” or experience, as practised by Marsh and Grossteste, did not find such a warm reception in other mediaeval universities. The scholars of the 13th Century were also churchmen and distrust of experimental science was in the tradition of the Christian Church. Coming of age in the shadow of the pagan Roman Empire, early Christianity competed for converts with a number of popular cults which proved their verity by means of Greek “science.” In practice, however, this “science” was no more than an amalgamation of sorcery and superstition. To the early Christian writers “science” and “heresy” were synonymous. The feeling of the age was well summarised by Bishop Ambrose of Milan when he stated that “to discuss the nature and position of the earth does not help us in our hope of the life to come”.

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