The life & work of Roger Bacon : an introduction to the Opus majus / by H. Gordon Jones.

  • John Henry Bridges
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The life & work of Roger Bacon : an introduction to the Opus majus / by H. Gordon Jones. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    28/180 (page 26)
    for in that year the revolt of the Pastoureaux^ broke out ; and Bacon tells us that he ‘ saw their leader walking barefoot in a troop of armed men carrying something in his hands with the care with which a man carries a sacred relic ’ (Op. Maj.^ vol. i, p. 401). For some time between this date and 1257 he was probably in Oxford. Whether he lectured there publicly we do not know. But that he incurred the suspicion of his superiors in the Franciscan Order is certain ; whether by audacity in speculation, by experiments looked upon as magical, or by frank exposure of the ignorance of professorial magnates, cannot be said with certainty. His old friends and teachers, Edmund Rich and Adam Marsh, had passed from the scene. Grosse- teste, his revered master, was dead, or died (1253) shortly after his return, in despair at the corruption of the Papacy, and half doubting whether Rome had not become the seat of Antichrist. No one was left to promote the study of Greek, which for aught we know died out in Oxford till Erasmus witnessed its revival. In 1256, John of Fidanza, better known as Bonaventura, became General of the Franciscan Order, a man of exalted and aspiring mysticism, eager to revive the spirit of St Francis, and not likely to care much for new ^ [The Shepherds’ Crusade.]