scarcely anything to disturb for a moment its even and onward flow, till
after he had been between seven and eight years King of England. The
portion of his reign from the middle of the year 1162 till the end of
1170 was mostly spent in a contest with one of his own subjects. The
famous Thomas-a-Becket is said to have been born in London in 1117, and
his legendary history, which may have some foundation in fact, makes him
to have been the son of a citizen of English race, Gilbert Beck, Beckie,
or Becket, by the daughter of a Saracen chief, who, when he had been
taken prisoner in the east, whither he had followed his Norman lord to
the holy wars, had fallen in love with him, contrived to release him
from his captivity, and afterwards followed him to England, and found
him out by inquiring wherever she went for London and Gilbert, the only
two English words she knew. Thomas-a-Becket, like his father, attached
himself to the Norman conquerors of his native land; his accomplishments
and his obsequiousness had before the end of the reign of Stephen raised
him to high favour with Theobald, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who
induced him to take deacon's orders, and made him archdeacon of his
metropolitan church; he was presented to Henry soon after his accession,
and he was almost immediately appointed to the high office of chancellor
of the kingdom, to which were speedily added the custody of the castle
of Berkhampstead, the government of the Tower of London, and other
preferments. He was now the most powerful subject in England, the man
whom the king most delighted to honour, the familiar friend of his
sovereign, and his constant and intimate associate in his private life,
in his amusements and pleasures, as well as in the government of the
realm. One of Becket's biographers tells us that after they had finished
their serious affairs they would often play together like two boys of
the same age. This continued till Henry crowned his long unvarying
favour by making Becket Archbishop of Canterbury, in May, 1162. From
that moment his former friend, who had been indebted to him for so much,
for all that he had and all that he was, became his rival and his enemy.
Becket, indeed, was now in every respect a changed man. The gay,
careless, luxurious layman (for as such he had been hitherto considered,
notwithstanding his deacon's orders), the man of gallantry in every
sense of the term (for he had also borne arms with distinguished
reputation), was transformed at once into a cold, rigid, ascetic priest,
hard and unimpressible as a man of stone. All that he had hitherto
appeared, all that had seemed his nature and very self, was thrown off
as if it had been a masque or disguise. It is unnecessary, however, to
assume that Becket was insincere or dishonest either in the part he had
made a show of sustaining till now, or in this sudden metamorphosis. It
is rather proof of his inherent honesty, as well as of his force of
character, that he would not seem to be what he was not, that he would
not become a churchman in name without becoming one in reality. But,
with this spirit, his new position brought him immediately into
collision with Henry. A contest for supremacy between the church and the
state was not a new thing in England. Ever since the Conquest the
subjugation of the spiritual to the temporal power had been a prominent
and steadily pursued part of the policy of the crown. The Conqueror had
placed the Archbishop of Canterbury upon an eminence of rank and
political position, such as was scarcely occupied by any other subject
in Christendom; but in doing this he had strenuously aimed at the same
time at making the church part and parcel of the state; so that the
primate, with all the splendour of his station, and the other bishops,
should in fact form rather a baronage or nobility, the supporters and
servants of the crown, than a separate power. This system, however, was
entirely opposed to the pretensions and aims of the court of Rome, and
to the notions generally entertained by all orders of ecclesiastics in
that age. The papal power, professing to consider all legitimate royalty
and other civil authority to be derived from itself, and even to be
resumable at its will and pleasure, and maintaining the state to be
everywhere thus the creation of the church, always resolutely refused to
acquiesce, except occasionally in the way of compromise, in any
arrangements which seemed to proceed upon an opposite idea or principle.
Hence in the time of Rufus and Henry I. the contest between these kings
and Archbishop Anselm about investitures, or the right of nominating to
offices in the church, which the archbishop and the clergy held to be in
the pope, but which the crown insisted upon retaining in its own hands.
The first Henry had made good his claims in regard to this matter, and
the other subjects of difference between the two interests had not since
occasioned any serious disagreement. It is probable, however, that
during the weak irregular government of Stephen the spiritual power had
made some encroachments, if not in regard to investitures, in another
direction. It was a still more important question upon which Henry now
found himself opposed by Becket. This king was as little likely as
anyone of his predecessors to tolerate such of the pretensions of the
clergy as would have either allied them as a body with a foreign power,
or withdrawn them as individuals from subjection to the ordinary laws of
the realm. It can hardly be doubted that so long as Becket held the
office of chancellor (which he threw up as soon as he obtained the
primacy) he had gone vigorously along with his royal master in
discountenancing, and, where necessary, resisting, all such pretensions.
Now, however, when Henry insisted that clerks, or ecclesiastical
persons, when charged criminally, should be tried in the king's courts,
and punished, if found guilty, in the same way with other subjects, the
archbishop declared this to be a violation of the rights of the church,
and set himself to oppose what he denounced as a sacrilegious innovation
with all the powers of his office. Whether the system which Henry wished
to enforce was in conformity with the ancient customs of the kingdom, as
he maintained that it was, may indeed be disputed. It was manifestly, at
any rate, the only system compatible with the good government of the
kingdom. The highest punishments that the ecclesiastical courts could
inflict were flagellation, fine, imprisonment, and degradation; and the
crime of murder itself, when committed by a clergyman, was usually
expiated by a whipping when the case was left in their hands. On the
other hand the archbishop probably also conceived himself to be bound in
duty to make the stand he did for the claims set up by the church. There
is no difficulty in understanding how the two parties should see the
question differently from their opposite points of view; and they both
gave by the whole course of their conduct all possible evidence of their
sincerity. After other proceedings, Henry assembled a great council at
Clarendon, in Wiltshire, at Christmas, 1163, and there demanded the
assent of Becket and the other prelates to sixteen constitutions or
articles, embodying what he maintained to be the ancient law or custom
of the realm upon the matters in dispute. Becket, who had before refused
to promise obedience to a much less comprehensive enactment, was now
prevailed upon by the entreaties of his brethren to sign these
constitutions; but he would not affix his seal to them. Even his
signature, which had been wrung from him by importunity, was no sooner
given than it was bitterly repented of, and he made no scruple openly to
accuse himself of the most criminal weakness in doing what he had done.
The contest was now renewed with greater animosity on both sides than
ever, and before the end of the year Becket had clandestinely withdrawn
himself from England, and taken refuge in France, under the protection
of King Louis. He remained abroad, firmly refusing to make any
concession; but at last, in July, 1170, he and Henry held a conference
in a meadow near Freitville, or Freteval, on the borders of Touraine,
when the form of a reconciliation was gone through, and the archbishop
soon after set out on his return to England. He reached Canterbury on
the 3rd of December, and with the exception of making a visit to London,
remained there in quiet for the next three weeks. Meanwhile, however,
accounts had been brought to Henry in Normandy, that before he had
embarked at Wissant, he had sent forward letters of excommunication or
suspension against the archbishop of York, the bishop of London, and
others of the prelates who had stood by the king in the late
controversy. Several of these prelates instantly came themselves over to
Rouen, and informed the king of this extraordinary proceeding. Furious
with indignation Henry hastily exclaimed, "Of the dastards who eat my
bread is there no one who will deliver me from this ungrateful,
turbulent, incorrigible priest?" Four knights who heard the words, soon
after suddenly and secretly started for England. On that same day,
Saturday the 25th, the archbishop was present in his cathedral, at the
performance of the solemnities of Christmas, and preached to a crowded
auditory from the words "I am come unto you to die in the midst of you."
After his sermon he excommunicated some individuals who, he said, had
for the last seven years been busy in wronging and insulting himself and
the church. On the Tuesday following, being the 28th, the four knights
arrived from Normandy. On the afternoon of the next day, accompanied by
twelve others, they made their way into the archbishop's house; he was
prevailed upon by his friends to proceed to the Church; thither,
however, the conspirators followed him; they demanded that he should
absolve the excommunicated bishops, but, unbending to the last, he bid
defiance to their menaces; upon which he was struck down by repeated
blows at the foot of the altar. Henry was still keeping his Christmas
festival at Bure, in Normandy, when tidings of the event were brought to
him. There can be no reasonable doubt that he was profoundly affected
with horror at the crime that had been committed almost in his name, as
well as alarmed for the consequences. He shut himself up in his closet
for three days, admitting no one and refusing all nourishment. It was
not till after a negociation of two years that he obtained from the
Court of Rome, a full absolution, on his appearing in the cathedral of
Avranches, and there publicly taking his solemn oath on the Gospels,
that he was innocent of the murder of the archbishop both in word and
deed. Meanwhile, he had acquired new power and glory by the conquest of
Ireland; circumstances were also changed in other respects; new objects
had in part withdrawn him from the controversy with the church which had
occupied him almost to the exclusion of everything else, for the
preceding six or seven years; and now that Becket was removed the
pretensions of the clergy, although they may have remained the same in
words, had actually become something very different and much less
formidable. Henry therefore now also engaged, that if any customs
hostile to the liberties of the ecclesiastical order had been introduced
into his kingdom since his accession, they should be abolished. And four
years after, in a great council held at Northampton, the constitutions
of Clarendon were so far repealed as that, among other concessions of
less moment, clergymen were exempted from being personally arraigned
before a secular judge for any crime, unless it were against the forest
laws, or regarded a lay fee for which they owed service to a lay lord.
But, although we learn this from a letter written by the king to the
pope, Alexander III., which is preserved by the contemporary Latin
annalist Ralph de Diceto (himself a churchman), it may be doubted if the
satisfaction thus given to the clergy proved, after all, much more than
a form of words.
Before this, however, Henry had become involved in new troubles, and
had encountered the first gust of the storm that was to wrap the
afternoon of his reign and his life in darkness and ruin. In the year
1170, in the midst of his contest with Becket, he had had his eldest son
Henry consecrated and crowned as conjoint king with himself. The
ceremony was performed in Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of York;
and a theory that has satisfied some modern historians is, that Henry's
object in this proceeding was simply to spite Becket and to diminish the
authority he derived from his station, by showing that a King of England
could be crowned without the assistance of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
It is certain, indeed, that Becket resented what had been done as an
invasion of the privileges of his see, and this was the principal ground
on which he had applied for, and obtained from the pope, the letters of
excommunication against the Archbishop of York and the other prelates
who had assisted him at the coronation, his display and threatened
employment of which had probably been the occasion of his murder. But
all the circumstances seem to show that Henry was principally actuated
by affection for his son, and a desire to place him in a position of
honour and of splendour, although his age, only fourteen, of course
precluded him from being as yet entrusted with any share in the
government. The young prince, however, or, as he was now called, the
young king, or sometimes Henry III., made no creditable return, whether
it was fondness or policy that had chiefly moved his father thus to
advance him. He appears to have been rather weak than ill-disposed; his
new title probably made him giddy; and, easily led in any direction, he
was much more likely, in his position, to be led wrong than right. All
cordiality between Henry and Queen Eleanor had long been at an end; his
infidelities and her jealous temper had completely divided and alienated
them; and Eleanor's natural resource was to endeavour to gain over her
sons to make common cause with her against their father. About the end
of the year 1172, the young king Henry, who was married to the daughter
of the French king, Louis VII., and had just been crowned a second time
along with his wife, startled his father by a sudden demand, that he
should immediately resign to him either the dukedom of Normandy or the
sovereignty of England. At this time the boy was not yet sixteen, and
his father was himself still under forty. The preposterous proposal is
believed to have been prompted by Queen Eleanor and King Louis; from the
day on which it was made, and of course instantly rejected, the young
king, we are told, spoke not one word more of peace to his father; a few
months after, while he was with his father at Chinon, on their way back
to Normandy from Limoges, he arose during the night and secretly
withdrew himself to the court of his father-in-law; his flight was
speedily followed by that of his two younger brothers Richard and
Geoffrey, upon the former of whom their father had conferred the earldom
of Poictiers, upon the latter the dukedom of Bretagne, and, who had been
left with their mother in Guienne; and lastly their mother set out to
join her sons, but, being caught as she travelled in man's attire, was
by her husband's orders put into immediate confinement, nor was she
afterwards released, except once for a short space, while Henry lived.
The war that followed between Henry and his sons, aided by King
Louis, did not last long. Attacked as he was on every side at once--in
Brittany, in Normandy, in Anjou, in Guienne, in England; from France,
from Toulouse, from Scotland--the vigour of the old king, as he was
called, carried everything before it; and a peace and reconciliation
were arranged after a few months. It was during this contest that Henry
performed his famous penance at the tomb of Becket. The desire to see,
in the quarrel between Becket and Henry, a struggle between the old
Anglo-Saxon population and their Norman conquerors has probably been
carried much too far by the eminent living French historian Augustin
Thierry: the controversy was in the main and essentially, there can be
no doubt, a trial of strength between the church and the state, between
the temporal and the spiritual powers, between the crown and the pope,
between the laity and the clergy; nor do we believe that the accident of
Becket being of Anglo-Saxon lineage went for anything in the case. There
is no good evidence that the circumstance ever was appealed to or taken
notice of either on the one side or the other. It may be conceded,
however, that both parties would naturally wish to secure whatever
support could be derived from the sympathy of the great body of the
people, and that in this way the native English, who had been already
for some time rising again from the state of prostration to which they
were struck down by the Conquest, would both be led to take the greater
interest in the dispute, and may have been benefited by it. Their
devotional and superstitious feelings also were, no doubt, strongly
excited by many of the proceedings to which the clergy resorted; and we
may well conceive that they would be transported to a state of the
highest enthusiasm, first, by horror at the barbarous and sacrilegious
murder of Becket, and afterwards, by the miracles with which the kingdom
resounded as having been performed at his tomb. But these were feelings
which there is every reason to believe were shared in an equal degree by
the generality of their Norman masters. The king himself was probably by
no means exempt from them. With all the licence that he allowed himself
in some respects, he was neither without the piety nor above the
superstition of his age; and the circumstances in which he now stood,
with troubles gathering around him, and the consciousness pressing upon
him that he had, by his hasty and passionate words, materially
contributed to Becket's death, were very likely to awaken his devotion
and penitence. It seems impossible to regard him as merely acting a
part, assuming the outward appearance of a reverence and contrition
which he did not feel, in this penitential pilgrimage, when the whole
proceeding and his demeanour throughout are fairly considered. He set
sail from Barfleur early on the morning of the 8th of July, 1174. It
blew fresh at the time, and, the gale increasing after the ship had got
under way, some apprehension began to be felt, upon which Henry, coming
forward so as to be seen by all, exclaimed, with eyes uplifted to
heaven, "If what I have in my mind be for the peace of my clergy and my
people, if God have determined to restore such peace by my arrival, then
may he in his mercy bring me safe into port; but, if he have resolved
still further to scourge my kingdom in his wrath, may it never be given
me again to set my foot on land." He landed at Southampton on the
morning of the 10th, and instantly getting on horseback, set out for
Canterbury, pursuing his journey all night, and taking no other
sustenance than a little bread and water. He came within sight of the
metropolitan church at the dawn of the next day, Friday the 11th, and
then dismounting, and throwing off both his silk apparel and his boots,
he walked in the garb of a pilgrim, and barefoot, over the flinty road
for the three remaining miles of the way. When he entered the city, his
footsteps were observed to leave their marks in blood upon the pavement.
Proceeding forthwith to the cathedral, he entered it along with the
thronging inhabitants of the city, collected by the ringing of the
bells, and, prostrating himself with his face to the ground, wept and
sobbed aloud, while the Bishop of London announced from the pulpit that
Henry King of England was here come to invoke God and the holy martyr
for the salvation of his soul; to protest that he never either ordered
or desired the death of the martyr; and to submit his naked flesh to be
scourged for the hasty and imprudent words uttered by him, by which the
murderers might pretend that they had been excited to the act. After
this the king descended to the crypt where the archbishop's body was
interred, and there, stripping off his clothes and kneeling down on the
tombstone, he submitted his bare back to be scourged with a knotted cord
by all the bishops and monks that were present, each giving him three,
four, or five strokes, while he pronounced the words, "As the Redeemer
was scourged for the sins of men, so be thou for thy own sin." He spent
all the rest of the day and the following night in the crypt in prayer
and fasting; and the next morning, after hearing mass, he left
Canterbury without tasting anything save a draught of the holy water
kept at the martyr's tomb. He rode to London; but when he had finished
his journey he was taken ill, and he was confined for some days by
fever. On the fifth night of his illness a messenger arrived at the
palace and insisted upon instant admission to the king. He brought the
news of the capture of the king of Scotland at Alnwick, by Ranulf de
Glanville. And it turned out that this great event had taken place on
the very Saturday on the morning of which Henry had risen an absolved
and reconciled man from the shrine of the martyr.
For some years from this time Henry was left at peace, although in
1179 his two eldest sons, Henry and Richard, took arms against each
other, and Poitou and Guienne were for a time disturbed and devastated
by their dissension. But in 1183 war again broke out between the sons
and the father. Sometimes he was opposed to one, sometimes to two of
them; sometimes to Henry, Richard, and Geoffrey, all at once. Both the
two elder were soon cut off; Henry, by fever, on the 11th of June, at
Chateau Martel, near Limoges; Geoffrey, early in 1185, by being thrown
from his horse and trampled to death, in a tournament at the court of
the new French king Philip II. (Augustus), whose aid he had sought
against his father. Richard, however, continued in rebellion, or rather,
repeatedly defeated and forgiven, still again and again took up arms,
whenever a favourable moment seemed to present itself. He had a story
that he was fond of relating, about a countess of Anjou, one of his
ancestry, who never went to church, and at last, on being taken there
one day by force, flew out of the window, on the elevation of the host,
and was never more seen; and he used to ask if it was to be wondered at
that, sprung from such a stock, the household to which he belonged
should be divided against itself. "What comes from the devil," said he,
"to the devil must return." Mutual hatred, he professed to believe, was
the doom of his family--the fatal inheritance which none of them would
ever renounce. At last, at a conference held at La Ferte Bernard, in
Maine, on the 18th of November, 1188, Richard, on his father's refusal
to comply with his demands, turned round in indignation to the French
king, who stood by, and, having ungirt his sword and fallen upon his
knees, offered his homage to Philip, in Henry's presence, for all the
territories that the latter held in France. Philip accepted his
allegiance, and the war was renewed as soon as the term of the truce
expired. By this time Henry's spirits, as well as his health, seem to
have been broken; his operations in the field were languid and
ineffective, and he was soon reduced to the necessity of suing for
peace. The matter in regard to which Richard and Philip had pretended to
feel most keenly was Henry's detention of Alice, the sister of the
French king, who many years before had been affianced to Richard, and
his refusal to allow their marriage to take place. He professed to wish
to marry her to his youngest son John; but it was suspected that he
loved the young and beautiful princess himself, and that her heart, too,
was his. Now, however, he offered to resign everything, Alice included;
he proposed that she should, in the meantime, be placed in such custody
as might be thought fittest, and delivered either to Richard or Philip,
on their return from their projected expedition to the Holy Land. The
French princess, we may mention, after all was not married to Richard.
Though he had demanded her so clamorously before, when he became king he
refused to have her; and she eventually became the wife of William Earl
of Aumale and Ponthieu, by whom she had a daughter, who married
Ferdinand III. King of Castile, and was the mother of Eleanor, the queen
of our Edward I. Henry and Philip met to arrange a peace on the 28th of
June, 1189, on a plain between Tours and Azay-sur-Cher. Henry agreed to
everything that was demanded of him. He became very ill before the
conference closed, and was carried from the place in a litter to his
quarters, where a few days after the articles of the treaty were sent to
him for his ratification. They were read to him one by one as he lay on
his bed; and when he had heard the one which secured from punishment all
who had been engaged on the side of Richard in the late war, either
openly or secretly, and allowed them, although they had hitherto been
his own subjects, liberty to continue the vassals of his son, he asked
how many and who were the persons whose faith and allegiance he would
thus have to lose. The first that was named to him was his youngest son
John, his favourite son, of whose affection and fidelity he had never
had a doubt, for whose sake, in great part, it had been that he had
resisted the demands of Richard, and brought himself to the state in
which he was. When he heard it pronounced he raised himself convulsively
half up in the bed, and, with a wild look, asked if it was true that
this son, whom he had so loved and trusted, for whom he had done and
suffered so much, had actually deserted him. He was assured that so it
was. He then fell back, and, turning his face to the wall, said, "Well,
then! henceforth let all things go as they may; I care nothing more
about myself or the world." A few days after he was removed to the
Castle of Chinon, and there, on the 6th of July, he breathed his last.
Geoffrey, his son by Rosamund Clifford, was with him to the end.
ROGER BACON
Some part of this biography will make the rest more intelligible if made
a preliminary explanation. Before the appearance of Wood's History of
Oxford (1674), no one had added anything to the summaries of Leland,
Bale, and Pits, which are little more than ill-understood lists of
works. The name of Bacon was known far and wide as a magician; and the
better informed could only judge from such fragments as had been
published, and from the traditional reputation of what remained in
manuscript, that he was a philosopher of the highest genius. These
printed fragments are as follows, so far as we can collect them, being
all that was published down to the appearance of Dr. Jebb's edition of
the 'Opus Majus:' which closes the list--
1. 'De mirabili Potestate Artis et Naturae et Nullitate Magiae,' Paris,
1542, 4to.; Basil., 1593, 8vo.; in English,[6] Lond., 1597, 4to.; Hamb.,
1608 and 1618, 8vo.; in French, Par., 1612, 8vo.; also in French, by
Girard, Par., 1557 and 1629; in vol. v. of Zetzner's 'Theatrum
Chemicum,' Argent., 1622, 8vo., and 1659 (?); in English, by T. M.,
Lond., 1659, 12mo.
2. 'Perspectiva,' 'Specula Mathematica,' and 'De Speculis Ustoriis,'
Francof., 1614, 4to., whether as one book or three we do not know; the
'Perspectiva' was reprinted in 1671, also at Frankfort.
3. 'De Retardatione Senectutis,' Oxon., 1590, 8vo.; translated, 'The
Cure of Old Age,' by R. Browne, M.D., Lond., 1683, 12mo.
4. 'De Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae,' Hamb., 1618, 8vo., edited by
John Dee.
5. The 'Thesaurus Chemicus,' Franckfort, 1603 and 1620, 8vo. (?)
contains the 'Specula Mathematica,' the 'Speculum Alchymiae,' and some
other tracts, which Tanner puts down altogether as 'Scripta sanioris
medecinae in arte chemiae.'
6. 'Speculum Alchymiae,' Norimb., 1581, 4to.; Basil., 1561, 4to.;
Ursellis, 1602, 8vo.; in English, in 'Collectanea Chymica,' Lond., 1684,
8vo.; also[7] in English, Lond., 1597, 4to.
7. 'Practica Magistri Rogerii,' Venet., 1513 and 1519.
8. 'Epistolas Notis illustratas' (we take the title from Tanner), Hamb.,
1618, 8vo.
9. 'Fratris Rogeri Bacon, Ordinis Minorum, Opus Majus, ad Clementem IV.
Pontif. Rom.,' Londini, 1733, fol. By Dr. Jebb.
The little that is known of the greatest of English philosophers before
the time of his celebrated namesake, shows how long the effects of
contemporary malice might last, before the invention of printing had
made an appeal to posterity easy. His writings, destroyed or overlooked,
only existed in manuscript or mutilated printed versions, till nearly
the middle of the last century. In the mean time tradition framed his
character on the vulgar notions entertained in his day of the results of
experimental science; and the learned monk, searching for the
philosopher's stone in his laboratory, aided only by infernal spirits,
was substituted for the sagacious advocate of reform in education,
reading, and reasoning; and--what was equally rare--the real inquirer
into the phenomena of nature.
Roger Bacon died in 1292, in about the seventy-eighth year of his age,
which places his birth near the year 1214; roughly speaking, he lived
from the time of the Interdict in the reign of John, to the beginning of
the interference with Scotland in that of Edward I. His age is that of
Cardinal Cusa, Thomas a Kempis, Matthew Paris, Albertus Magnus, Raymond
Lully, Sacrobosco, &c., to whom we add, as they are sometimes confounded
with him, and not for their own note, two theologians, Robert Bacon and
John Bacon (died about 1346.) The former was a priest of the thirteenth
century, whom it would be hardly necessary to notice but for the fact
that some of our historians have made him the brother of Roger Bacon,
and the two have been often confounded. He is stated to have studied
successively at Oxford and Paris; and in 1233, when his friend and
teacher, Edmund Rich, was removed from the treasurership of Salisbury
Cathedral to the archbishopric of Canterbury, Robert Bacon was his
successor. The archbishop was canonized by the title of St. Edmund; and
Bacon wrote his life. Matthew Paris states that in 1233 Robert Bacon
preached before Henry III. at Oxford, and spoke openly against the
favourite, Peter des Roches (or De Rupibus), of Poiton, Bishop of
Winchester, who had given great offence by the introduction and
promotion of many of his countrymen. Serious disturbance was
apprehended, and the king appeared to waver; on which, says the
historian, a witty court chaplain, called _Roger_ Bacon, asked his
Majesty what was most dangerous to seamen. The king answered that seamen
best knew, on which the chaplain rejoined. "Petrae et Rupes;
acdiceretur, Petrus de Rupibus." This story is the likely origin of the
connexion between Robert and Roger, and also of the account which states
that Roger Bacon, the subject of this article, preached before the king
on the same occasion. Robert Bacon joined the order of preaching friars
in his old age, and died in 1248, whence the story (certainly false)
that Roger died in that year. ('Biogr. Britann.;' Tanner, 'Biblioth.
Britan. Hibern.;' Wood, 'Hist. et Ant. Oxon.')
Roger Bacon was born near Ilchester, in Somersetshire, of a respectable
family. He was educated at Oxford, and, according to the usual custom of
his day, proceeded to Paris, which was then the first university in the
world. The course of study in vogue, however unfavourable to
independence of thought, did not give so great a preponderance to the
works of Aristotle as was afterwards the case. The theology of the day
had set strongly against philosophy of every species. In 1209 a council
at Paris condemned and burnt, if not the works of Aristotle, at least
the mutilated and interpolated translations from the Arabic which then
existed. But when, towards the middle of the century, Latin versions
from the Greek began to appear, and the philosophy contained in them to
be warmly advocated by the new orders of Franciscans and Dominicans, and
particularly by Albertus Magnus (died 1282), the reputation of Aristotle
advanced so rapidly, that he had gained the exclusive title of "the
Philosopher" by the time Roger Bacon wrote his 'Opus Majus.' But Bacon
in no sense became an Aristotelian, except in that which comprehends all
who are acquainted with the opinions and methods of the Greek
philosopher. Better versed in the original than most of his
contemporaries, he freely criticises all he meets with (especially the
merit of the translations, which he says he would burn, if he could),
and is himself an early and sufficient proof that the absurdities of his
successors ought not to be called "Aristotelian," any more than
Aristotle himself "the Philosopher." Bacon could read Aristotle without
danger of falling into idolatry: his antagonists could have erected a
system of verbal disputes upon the Principia of Newton, if they had
possessed it.