Roger Bacon

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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.

The general complaisance of mediaeval scholars towards science was shattered in the 11th Century. Conflicts with the forces of Islam in the Holy Land and Spain brought Europeans face to face with four centuries of Moslem learning. Christian sailors found the astrolabe more effective than the human eye for charting a ship’s course by the stars. Arabic numerals proved less cumbersome to use than Roman numerals and were soon adopted by merchants for calculating investments and by churchmen in determining the date of Easter. Most revolutionary of all to Christian thinkers were the Arabic translations of and commentaries on Aristotle, who soon became known as the prince of philosophers. His observations of physical as well as spiritual phenomena provided meat for active minds.

While the works of Aristotle were being assimilated by university scholars, Roger Bacon was gaining reputation as a lecturer. He chose to centre his discourses on the new science and must have demonstrated admirable command of his subject as well as eloquence in his delivery. In 1241 he was invited to Paris to present a lecture series on the Aristotelian corpus.

The invitation from Paris brought Bacon to a cross-roads in his academic career. He had to decide whether to continue teaching philosophy with his master’s degree, or to persevere towards a doctor of divinity. There was no better place to do either than Paris. Many an Englishman had gone there to study theology and returned to England, a distinguished expert in the field, to fill a bishopric. On the other hand, a number of English scholars with an interest in science had likewise studied and lectured there.

Bacon’s inclination was heavily weighted against the study of theology. The baccalaureat program in Divinity required eight years of study beyond what he had already completed, plus an additional eight to earn the title of Doctor. He was now nearly 30 years old and could not picture himself attending lectures on elementary theology surrounded by boys who lacked half his years in age and all his years in philosophical training. One thing further influenced his final decision: he loved Aristotelian philosophy and desired to become a renowned authority,’ whose opinions would shape the European awareness of the subject. A lectureship in Paris with the Faculty of Arts seemed an opportunity to realise this all-important goal. Shortly thereafter Paris became his place of residence.

Bacon’s appointment as magister regens lasted from 1241 to 1250. During those years he gained recognition as a teacher who argued according to sense and Aristotle. This was no more than he expected, for he considered himself a good teacher. He discovered, however, that he had much to learn from his students. His Spanish-born pupils laughed at him during a lecture when he mistakenly referred to a Spanish word as Arabic. This embarrassment convinced him that there was merit in the study of languages. He set out to master the four languages which he felt most essential to the study of philosophy: Greek, Arabic, Hebrew and Chaldean. In his spare time he began a Greek grammar, the first book of the volume on the grammar of languages other than Latin. His writings also included a text for his students, the Quaestiones, in the form of a disputation between a teacher and his students.

In addition to his academic duties, Bacon found time to audit lectures at the Faculty of Theology. Several times he amused himself by confounding a lecturer with some obscure philosophical point. He attempted to prove himself more learned than the doctors by designing problems of geometry that their theology could not solve. These intellectual gymnastics earned him little love from the theologians of Paris.

In one thing only was Bacon disappointed: he did not become a respected authority on Aristotle. His decision to devote himself to secular philosophy rather than to theology had guaranteed that he would not achieve the renown of Albertus Magnus or Thomas Aquinas, his fellow Paris scholars. His only hope of scholastic greatness seemed to lie in further study and reading. He threw himself more deeply into the new learning in search of a way to legitimise science by demonstrating its value to theology and so secure his reputation. When his friends invited him to join them in a goliardic romp through the streets of Paris, or to an evening of drinking at the local inn, he declined. They could only shake their heads and marvel at his determination to work himself to death.

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