Roger Bacon : essays contributed by various writers on the occasion of the commemoration of the seventh centenary of his birth / collected and edited by A.G. Little.
- Date:
- 1914
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Roger Bacon : essays contributed by various writers on the occasion of the commemoration of the seventh centenary of his birth / collected and edited by A.G. Little. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![It may be mentioned that Roger Bacon never became a doctor of divinity (in spite of early statements to the con- trary)/ and it is doubtful whether he was ever in holy orders. Before he joined the Franciscans he had already cut himself adrift from the traditional methods and objects of study [neglecto sensu vulgi) and struck out a line for himself. He had already become convinced of the inadequacy of logic and of the need for the acquisition of positive knowledge. ‘ During the twenty years (he says in 1267) 3 in which I have laboured specially in the study of wisdom, after abandoning the usual methods, I have spent more than 2000/. on secret books and various experiments, and languages and instruments and mathematical tables, &c/ Though a libra Parisiensium was only equivalent to a third of a pound sterling,3 it is difficult to believe that a Mendicant Friar, even so hardy a beggar as Bacon evidently was when the interests of science were concerned, can have obtained so large a sum : it must have included his private means in alio statu. 1 He is called ‘ magister 5 in Amiens MS. 406—evidently Master of Arts. No thirteenth-century document, so far as I know, refers to him as Doctor or Master of Theology. The Ckron. XXIV Gene- ralium, written c. 1370, but containing earlier matter, calls him S. Theol. Mag. (p. 360). On the other hand, Bartholomew of Pisa, who is very careful to distinguish between friars who were masters of theology and friars who were not, always refers to him as frater, neveras magister : Conform., i. 338 (ed. Quaracchi) £ Frater Rogerius Bachon, in omni facultate doctissimus, in eisdem scribendo mirabilis apparet scientiarum diversitate imbutus ' (the first appearance of his traditional epithet ‘mirabilis/: cf. pp. 341, 547, ‘fratrem Robertum (sic) Bachon/ 3 Op. Tert. (Brewer), p. 59. 3 This is Bacon's estimate in the interesting passage quoted by Charles, Roger Bacon, p. 305, from MS. Royal 7, F. VIII, f. 4: ‘ Primum enim speculum consistit 60 libris parisiensium quae valent circiter 20 libras sterlingorum : et postea feci fieri melius pro 10 libris parisiensium, scil. pro quinque marcis sterlingorum [£3 65. 8d.] ; et postea diligentius expertus in his percepi quod meliora possent fieri pro duobus marcis, vel 20 solidis, et adhuc pro minore/](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28993949_0018.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
