It must be added, however, that there are passages in Bacon’s own writings which are perhaps also partly responsible for the growth of the idea that he was condemned for magic or astrology. Briefly, these are the passages where he himself says that there is danger of scientists being accused of magic. For instance, he tells us that “scarcely anyone has dared” to speak of astronomical images in public, “For those who are acquainted with them are immediately called magicians, although really they are the wisest men.”[2256] It also seems somewhat strange that Bacon should always be so condemnatory and contemptuous in his allusions to magic and magicians, when both William of Auvergne and Albertus Magnus allude to it as sometimes bordering upon science, in which case they do not regard it unfavorably. The suspicion occurs to one that Bacon perhaps protests a little too much, that he is condemning magic from a fear that he may be accused of it. But are not his apprehensions exaggerated? Does he not overstate the hostility of canonists and theologians to his many splendid sciences, and their tendency to confuse them with magic? Thomas of Cantimpré in the De natura rerum and Albert in the treatise on minerals and in the Speculum astronomiae dared to discuss astronomical images. And finally, whether there is any real ground for Bacon’s apprehensions or not, if he is afraid of being accused of magic, would not this very fear keep him from going too far and from thereby incurring condemnation in 1278 on this account?
Such were Roger Bacon’s views bearing upon magic and experimental science and their relations to Christian thought, as set forth principally in his Opus Maius and the two other treatises to the pope which supplemented it. Most medieval books impress one as literary mosaics where the method of arrangement may be new but most of the fragments are familiar. One soon recognizes, however, that striking similarity in two passages is no sure sign that one is copied from the other. The authors may have used the same Arabic sources or simply be repeating some commonplace thought of the times. Men began with the same assumptions and general notions, read the same limited library, reasoned by common methods, and naturally often reached the same conclusions, especially since the field of knowledge was not yet so extensive but that one man might try to cover it all, and since all used the same medium of thought, the Latin language. New discoveries were being made occasionally but slowly, perhaps also sporadically and empirically. A collection of industrial and chemical recipes in the thirteenth century may in the main be derived from a set of the seventh century or Hellenistic age, but a few new ones have somehow got added to the list in the interim. Thomas of Cantimpré’s encyclopedia professes to be no more than a compilation, but it seems to contain the first allusion we have to modern plumbing.
Bacon’s chief book was a mosaic like the rest, but bears a strong impress of his personality. Sometimes there is too much personality, but if we allow for this, we find it a valuable, though not a complete nor perfect, picture of medieval learning. Its ideas were not brand-new; it was not centuries in advance of its age; but while its contents may be found scattered in many other places, they will scarcely be found altogether anywhere else, for it combines the most diverse features. In the first place it is a “pious” production, if I may employ that adjective in a somewhat objectionable colloquial sense to indicate roughly a combination of religious, theological, and moral points of view. In other words, Bacon continues the Christian attitude of patristic literature to a certain extent; and his book is written by a clergyman for clergymen, and in order to promote the welfare of the Church and Christianity. There is no denying that, hail him as one may as a herald of modern science. Secondly, he is frequently scholastic and metaphysical; yet thirdly, is critical in numerous respects; and fourthly, insists on practical utility as a standard by which science and philosophy must be judged. Finally, he is an exponent of the aims and methods of what we have called “the natural magic and experimental school,” and as such he sometimes comes near to being scientific. So there is no other book quite like the Opus Maius in the Middle Ages, nor has there been one like it since; yet it is true to its age and is still readable to-day. It will therefore always remain one of the most remarkable books of the remarkable thirteenth century.
[2030] For bibliography of works on Roger Bacon see Theophilus Witzel’s article in The Catholic Encyclopedia; G. Delorme, in Vacant and Mangenot, Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, Paris, 1910, II, 31; Paetow, Guide to the Study of Medieval History, 1917, which gives the more recent literature on the subject. The most recent bibliography of Roger Bacon’s own writings, whether printed or in manuscript, is that by A. G. Little in the Appendix, pp. 376-425 of 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, Oxford, 1914—which will henceforth be cited as “Little, Essays, (1914).” The following is simply a list of those editions of Bacon’s writings which I shall have occasion to cite frequently in the ensuing pages, giving the full titles and an abbreviated form for purposes of future reference.
Fr. Rogeri Bacon, Opera quaedam hactenus inedita (ed. J. S. Brewer, London, 1859) in RS Vol. XV. The volume includes part of Bacon’s Opus Tertium, part of the Opus Minus, 313-89, part of the Compendium Studii Philosophiae, 393-519, and the Epistola de Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae et de Nullitate Magiae, 523-51. This will henceforth be cited as “Brewer.”
The Opus Maius of Roger Bacon. Ed. J. H. Bridges, Vols. I and II, Oxford, 1897; Vol. III (correcting numerous errors in I and II), 1900. This work will be hereafter cited as “Bridges.”
F. A. Gasquet, “An Unpublished Fragment of a Work by Roger Bacon,” EHR XII, 502. This fragment published by Gasquet is evidently the first part of the Opus Minus and will henceforth be cited as “Gasquet.”
Part of the Opus Tertium of Roger Bacon. Ed. A. G. Little, Aberdeen, 1912. This will be cited as “Little, Opus Tertium (1912).” It includes Duhem’s fragment published also by Quaracchi, 1909, Un fragment inédit de l’Opus tertium de Roger Bacon précédé d’une étude sur ce fragment.
Fratris Rogeri Bacon Compendium Studii Theologiae. Ed. H. Rashdall, Aberdeen, 1911, in British Society of Franciscan Studies, Vol. III. It will be cited as “Rashdall.”
Robert Steele, Opera Hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, Fasc. I, London, 1905; Fasc. II and III and IV and V (Oxon. 1909, 1911, 1913, 1920). This will be cited as “Steele.”
[2031] Charles Jourdain, “Discussion de Quelques Points de la Biographie de Roger Bacon,” in his Excursions Historiques et Philosophiques à travers le Moyen Age, Paris, 1888, 131-145.
[2032] Brewer, 65 and 59. Opus Tertium, caps. 20 and 17.
[2033] Opus Tertium, cap. 11, Brewer 38.
[2034] Opus Tertium, caps. 3 and 2, Brewer, 16 and 13. Gasquet, 502.
[2035] Opus Minus, Brewer, 318. If, however, we accept as a genuine work of Bacon the letter on retarding the accidents of old age which he is supposed to have sent to Pope Innocent IV (1243-1254), we shall have to admit that he had been “in partibus Romanis.” See Little, Essays, 4 and 399.
[2036] Gasquet, 502.
[2037] We are, however, told that he made his profession on the day he entered the Order, i.e., underwent no probationary period. Brewer, Monumenta Franciscana (1858) RS IV, 56 and 550.
[2038] Gasquet, 500 and Opus Tertium, Brewer, 65.
[2039] Albertus Magnus speaks more literally of himself as an exile (Mineralium, III, i, 1, “Exul enim aliquando factus fui, longe vadens ad loca metallica ut experiri possem naturas metallorum”): but no one has ever inferred from this that he was persecuted. Perhaps, however, Father Mandonnet would infer from the passage and from the favorable attitude of the treatise on minerals towards astrological images that Bacon was really the author.
[2040] Opus Tertium, cap. 1, Brewer, 7.
[2041] The Monthly Magazine or British Register, XIII, 449.
[2042] Bridges, II, 218.
[2043] Opus Minus, Brewer, 383-384.
[2044] Epistola de Secretis Operibus, cap. 2. Brewer, 525.
[2045] Gasquet, 511: “Scripto principali, quod vestra postulat reverentia.” Opus Tertium, Brewer, 58: “Propter vestrae gloriae mandatum, de quo confundor et doleo quod non adimplevi sub forma verborum vestrorum, ut scriptum philosophiae mitterem principale.” Also, p. 18.
[2046] Brewer, 1; Bridges I, 1-2, note: Wadding, Annal. Minor, IV, 265; Martene, Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum, II 358; E. Jordan, Les registres de Clément IV (1265-1268) ... d’après les manuscripts originaux des archives du vatican, Quatrième Fascicule, Paris, 1904, Appendice II, p. 384, No. 1081.
[2047] Brewer, 1: “Opus illud quod te dilecto filio Raymundo de Landuno communicare rogavimus in minori officio constituti.” Opus Tertium, Brewer, 14; Bacon says that Albert and William of Shyrwood could not send the pope what he has written, “infra tantum tempus ... a vestro mandato; et sicut nec ab ultimo, sic nec a primo.” Gasquet, 500: “Sed licet pleno desiderio quod iniunctum est complere pro posse meo sim teste Deo paratissimus, cum quoniam in minori officio constituti postulatis non fuerunt composita que iussistis” and “utrumque mandatum” and “antequam primum vestre dominationis recepi mandatum.” The following sentence (Opus Tertium, Brewer, 13) also seems to refer to the former mandate, despite the “ultimo,” “Non enim quando ultimo scripsistis fuerunt composita quae iussistis, licet hoc credebatis.”
[2048] Little, Essays (1914), 11: “His first project was an elaborate one, including a systematic and scientific treatment of the various branches of knowledge; he worked at this, writing parts of the Communia Naturalium and Communia Mathematicae, for some months (‘till after Epiphany,’ i.e., January 6, 1267), but found it impossible. He then started again on a more modest scale, and wrote in the next twelve months the preliminary treatise known as the Opus Maius, which was supplemented by the Opus Minus, and subsequently, by the Opus Tertium.”
[2049] Brewer, xlv.
[2050] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 14; “Non igitur mirandum si ego dilationem tantam fecerim in hac parte.” Ibid., 16-17: “Multotiens dimisi opus, et multotiens desperavi et neglexi procedere.” Ibid., 17: “Tanta dilatio in hoc negotio ... vestrae clementiae taedium pro spe dilata,” and other passages.
[2051] These excuses are listed in Gasquet, 500, to “antequam primum vestre dominationis recepi mandatum”; and are repeated in part in Opus Tertium, Brewer, 13.
[2052] To this period the difficulties listed in Opus Tertium, Brewer, 15-17 (middle), would seem to apply. In Brewer, 16, and Gasquet, 502, Bacon states that to get money to meet the expenses incident to the composition of his work he had sent to his rich brother in England, but received no response because “exiles and enemies of the king occupied the land of my birth,” while his own family had been exiled as supporters of the crown and ruined financially. All this must have occurred before the arrival of the second papal letter in 1266, for Simon de Montfort had been slain and the barons defeated in 1265.
[2053] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 5: “Et impedimentorum remedia priorum nactus.”
[2054] As Bacon himself states in the Opus Tertium, Brewer, 7: “Primo igitur in opere Secundo.”
[2055] I cannot agree with Gasquet, 497, that it “is obvious from numberless expressions in the work itself” that the Opus Maius was “addressed to the pope directly.” The last chapter of the first book in Bridges’s text is evidently addressed to the pope, but it is identical with a portion of the Opus Minus and evidently does not belong in the Opus Maius and is not found in the two oldest manuscripts. Similarly a passage of some 16 pages in Bridges on calendar reform, which gives the present year as 1267, is practically identical with a chapter of the Opus Tertium and was evidently transferred from that work to the Opus Maius at some later date. When we have excluded these passages the work is surprisingly free, compared to the other two works, from passages suggesting that it is addressed to the pope. The one mention of the “Apostolic See” (Bridges, I, 77; III, 94) is impersonal and does not imply that Foulques was pope, and does not occur in one of the manuscripts. Epithets such as “Your Wisdom” (Bridges, I, 17, 23, 305), “Your Highness” (I, 210; II, 377), “Your Glory” (I, 305; III, 96), “Your Reverence” (I, 376; II, 219), “Your Holiness” (I, 81; III, 101), “Your Beatitude” (I, 2, 72; III, 88) do not occur frequently and are equally applicable to a cardinal, or not found in all the manuscripts, suggesting the possibility of their having been inserted later.
[2056] Such seems to me the most plausible theory of the writing of the three works and the one which agrees best with Bacon’s own statements; but it is only a hypothesis from the printed texts of his works which should be verified by examination of the manuscripts. Probably some of Bacon’s statements can be interpreted to conflict with this hypothesis, but they sometimes conflict with each other, and he could not even keep the scriptum principale and Opus Maius distinct in his own mind according to Brewer’s text (p. 3, “duo transmisi genera scripturarum: quorum unum est principale,” and p. 5, “principalis scripturae,” whereas at p. 60 we read, “Patet igitur quod scriptum principale non potui mittere”). See also Gasquet, p. 503, and Opus Tertium, Brewer, p. 58. I have been stimulated by but cannot accept the conclusions of Father Mandonnet’s “Roger Bacon et la Composition des Trois ‘Opus’,” Revue Néo-Scolastique (Louvain, 1913), pp. 52-68 and 164-180. Mandonnet holds that the Opus Maius was written after the other two works, which were never finished nor sent, but from which Roger took some passages to insert in the Opus Maius, which Mandonnet believes was sent only in 1268.
[2057] “Quae tibi videntur adhibenda remedia circa illa, quae nuper esse (occasione?) tanti discriminis intimasti: et hoc quanto secretius poteris facias indilate.” E. Jordan, Les Registres de Clement IV, etc., gives “esse,” which would seem the correct reading rather than the “occasione” of Martene and Brewer. If one follows their version, as I did in “The True Roger Bacon,” 242-43, the passage would have to be translated, “What remedies you think should be applied in those matters indicated by you recently on so critical an occasion.” But apparently there was no such crisis.
[2058] Part of the Opus Tertium of Roger Bacon (ed. A. G. Little, Aberdeen, 1912), 80-82. This passage is the fourth one and in it Bacon lists the three earlier statements: “Scripsi in tribus locis Vestre Glorie de huiusmodi secretis.” Roger ultimately decides that he will not reveal the whole secret even in this fourth instalment, because alchemists never put the full truth into writing; he therefore “reserves some points for word of mouth.”
[2059] See the article on “Roger Bacon” by Theophilus Witzel in the Catholic Encyclopedia.
[2060] In our chapter on Galen we noted his similar complaints, and in the coming chapter on Peter of Abano we shall speak of his similar experience in having his Phisionomia stolen. Daunou wrote of Vincent of Beauvais in the Histoire Littéraire, XVIII (1835), p. 453: “il dit des occupations pénibles qui interrompaient son travail d’écrivain, et le forçaient à employer des copistes.”
[2061] Gasquet, 500. “Et ideo componere penitus abhorrebam,” etc.
[2062] Gasquet, 500.
[2063] Ibid.
[2064] Ibid., 502.
[2065] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 15.
[2066] Compendium Studii Philosophiae, Brewer, 399, 425, 431.
[2067] G. Delorme, “Roger Bacon,” in Vacant and Mangenot, Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, II (1910); “Ce fait basé uniquement sur l’autorité fort contestable de la chronique des xxiv généraux,” Analecta Franciscana (Quaracchi, 1897), III, 460.
[2068] Little, Essays (1914), 6, note 1.
[2069] For the facts of his career see DNB.
[2070] Essays, 27; Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant (second ed.) I, 248 questions this date.
[2071] Rashdall, 34 and 53.
[2072] Compare, for instance, the opening paragraph of the sixth chapter with Duhem, 153-54, and Little, Opus Tertium (1912), 50-51.
[2073] Gasquet, 509.
[2074] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 54-55.
[2075] This was a favorite formula with Bacon; see Opus Tertium, Brewer, 3-4, 20; Gasquet, 502, 509.
[2076] Opus Minus, Brewer, 388.
[2077] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 52.
[2078] Gasquet, 509.
[2079] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 81.
[2080] Bridges, I, 43.
[2081] Ibid., 56.
[2082] Bridges, I, 41. Bacon is believed to have rather misrepresented the position of William of Auvergne on this point, when he says that William twice reproved at Paris those who held the active intellect to be part of the soul. N. Valois, Guillaume d’Auvergne (Paris, 1880), 289-290; E. Charles, Roger Bacon: sa Vie, ses Ouvrages, ses Doctrines (Bordeaux, 1861), p. 327.
[2083] Bridges, I, 45; Gasquet, 508; Opus Tertium, Brewer, 24.
[2084] Bridges, I, 45.
[2085] Ibid., II, 170; Compendium Studii Philosophiae, Brewer, 405, 408.
[2086] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 50: “Mirum enim est de nobis Christianis, qui sine comparatione sumus imperfectiores in moribus quam philosophi infideles. Legantur decem libri Ethicorum Aristotelis et innumerabiles Senecae, et Tullii, et aliorum, et inveniemus quod sumus in abysso vitiorum.”
[2087] V. Cousin, Journal des Savants (1848), 467.
[2088] Little, Essays (1914), 4: “They are in the prevalent dialectic style, and perhaps might be put into the class of works which Bacon afterwards ridiculed as ‘horse-loads.’”
[2089] Little, Essays (1914), 241-284.
[2090] Opus Minus, Brewer, 360-367.
[2091] Bridges, I, 38, 143; Opus Tertium, Brewer, 120.
[2092] Bridges, I, 42.
[2093] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 6.
[2094] Compendium Studii Philosophiae, Brewer, 469.
[2095] Ibid., 473. Rashdall, 34.
[2096] He wrote a commentary on it; see Tanner MSS, 116, Bodleian Library; ed. Steele (1920).
[2097] Bridges, I, 389.
[2098] Compendium Studii Philosophiae, Brewer, 473.
[2099] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 50; Compendium Studii Philosophiae, Brewer, 422.
[2100] Ludwig Baur, Die Philosophischen Werke des Robert Grosseteste (Münster, 1912; Bd. IX in Baeumker’s Beiträge z. Gesch. d. Philos, d. Mittelalters), P. 15.
[2101] Cousin, Journal des Savants (1848), 300, concludes that because Bacon asserts that the Politics of Aristotle is not yet in use among the Latins, Albertus and Aquinas did not write their commentaries on this work until after 1266.
[2102] K. Werner, “Die Kosmologie und Allgemeine Naturlehre des Roger Bacon,” in Sitzungsberichte of the Vienna Academy, ph.-hist. Cl. (Vienna, 1879), XCIV, 495. For further errors by Bacon concerning the text of Aristotle see Duhem, “Roger Bacon et l’Horreur du Vide,” in Little, Essays (1914), 254 and 259.
[2103] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 302-304; Compendium Studii Philosophiae, Brewer, 412, 429, 399, 418 ff. and Opus Tertium, 84 ff.
[2104] Gasquet, 503; Brewer, 29-30.
[2105] E. Withington, “Roger Bacon and Medicine,” in Little, Essays (1914), 347.
[2106] Rashdall says in the introduction to his edition of Bacon’s Compendium Studii Theologiae (Aberdeen, 1911), p. 3: “There is a certain irony in the fact that the writer’s argument in favor of independent thinking as against authority consists chiefly of a series of citations.”
[2107] Bridges, I, 5-6 and also p. 7, where Bacon quotes another sentence from Adelard without naming him, “Et ideo multi ... cur a tergo non scribitis.”
[2108] See chapter 42 on Daniel Morley.
[2109] Bridges, I, 17; Opus Tertium, Brewer, 70, 91, 187.
[2110] Bacon’s ignorance of Spanish would probably in any case have prevented him from securing Alfonso as a patron.
[2111] Bridges, I, 192, 196, 271, 298, 299, note. Duhem, III (1915) 234, notes that in astronomical tables of 1232 for London tables for other cities are also mentioned: Paris, Marseilles, Pisa, Palermo, Constantinople, and Genoa, as well as Toledo.
[2112] Since it mentions the battle of Valbona in that year.
[2113] See Chapter 67.
[2114] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 37.
[2115] C. Baeumker, Witelo, ein Philosoph und Naturforscher des XIII Jahrhunderts, Münster, 1906. See Chapter 55, Appendix I.
[2116] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 14.
[2117] Compendium Studii Philosophiae, Brewer, 426.
[2118] Opera, ed. Borgnet, VIII, 803-804, and Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant, p. 332.
[2119] Opus Minus, Brewer, 324.
[2120] Compendium Studii Philosophiae, Brewer, 426. A century before John of Salisbury (Metalogicus, I), had written similarly: “Sed quia isti hesterni pueri, magistri hodierni, vapulantes in ferula, hodie stoleti docentes in cathedra.”
[2121] Opus Minus, Brewer, 326-327. It seems unlikely that Albert or Aquinas is meant.
[2122] Bridges, I, xxx.
[2123] Gasquet, 507.
[2124] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 65.
[2125] Gasquet, 507.
[2126] The quotations are from Professor D. E. Smith’s translation of Bacon’s Communia Mathematica as contained in Digby MS 76, fol. 57 (p. 130) and fol. 56 (p. 126).
[2127] From his Tractatus optimus super totam astrologiam as summarized in HL vol. 21, Notices succinctes sur divers écrivains, No. 27. Besides BN 7333 and 7334 the work is found in Amplon. Folio 393, fols. 22-43, and perhaps is the same as Amplon. Folio 386, fols. 1-25, speculum celeste. According to the Histoire Littéraire the treatise contains no judicial astrology, the word astrologiam being used in the meaning “astronomy” here.
[2128] Gasquet, 504-505; and Bridges, I, 31; see also Opus Tertium, Brewer, 59.
[2129] See page 632, note 1, and page 634, note 3.
[2130] In the Compendium Studii Philosophiae, written about 1272 (Brewer, 472). Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant, 40, rejects Bacon’s aspersions upon William’s translations. On William’s career and writings see HL XXI, 146.
[2131] Gasquet, 505: “Quamvis autem fatear quod plures sunt qui hec eadem que tracto possunt meliori modo quam ego vestre sapientie referre.”
[2132] Gasquet, 502.
[2133] Ibid., 504.
[2134] Ibid., 515; Opus Tertium, Brewer, 274, 275, 295. The writer of some astronomical tables for London in 1232 complains that the calendar year and feasts of the saints are in error: Duhem, III (1915), 234.
[2135] L. Baur, “Der Einfluss des Robert Grosseteste auf die Wissenschaftliche Richtung des Roger Bacon,” in Little, Essays (1914), 45.
[2136] Petrus de Alliaco, De Correctione Kalendarii, in an edition of the works of d’Ailly and Gerson printed about 1480.
[2137] S. A. Hirsch, “Roger Bacon and Philology,” in Little, Essays (1914), 145.
[2138] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 34, and Compendium Studii Philosophiae, Brewer, 434.
[2139] Bridges, I, 290, note, overstates the case, however, when he says: “This paragraph including half of that which follows ... is inserted without acknowledgment ...” etc., since much of it is omitted or condensed by d’Ailly.
[2140] Rather than 1480, as stated by Bridges, Ibid., and, with a query, in the British Museum Catalogue. See L. Salembier, Pierre d’Ailly et la découverte de l’Amérique, 1912, and his earlier works on the same subject.
[2141] Only in 1494, Salembier holds, did Columbus and his brother read the Imago mundi together, make their 898 notes in it, and form their grand project of reaching oriental India by sailing west.
[2142] Vinaud, Histoire critique de la grande entreprise de Colomb. Almeida, La découverte de l’Amérique, Extrait de la Revista de Historia, 1913.
[2143] Bridges, I, 292, “Sed Aristotelis dicit quod elephantes in illis locis esse non possunt nisi essent similis complexionis.”
[2144] Opus Maius, Bridges, I, 20, 45-56 and 65; Opus Tertium, Brewer, 24-25, 32.
[2145] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 50.
[2146] Pierre d’Ailly in 1410 in De Legibus et Sectis, cap. 4, pointed out that Bacon was relying upon a spurious work.
[2147] Little, Essays (1914), 16, quoting Adamson, Roger Bacon: The Philosophy of Science in the Middle Ages (1876), which is now out of print.
[2148] Ptolemy’s Optics is known only in Latin form, supposedly translated from the Arabic, edited by Govi (Turin, 1885); see Bridges, I, lxx. The Optica ascribed to Euclid is contained in Heiberg’s edition (Leipzig, 1895).
[2149] Baur, in Little, Essays (1914), 46-47.
[2150] D. E. Smith in Little, Essays (1914), 171, citing Heilbronner and other historians of mathematics.
[2151] Bridges, II, 172-173; Opus Tertium, Brewer, 43.
[2152] Little. Part of Opus Tertium (1912), 44.
[2153] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 44-45.
[2154] Gasquet, 510.... scientie omnes preter hanc vel utuntur argumentis tantum ad probationem conclusionum suarum, ut pure speculative scientie, vel habent experientias universales et imperfectas.
[2155] Bridges, II, 172. Haec ergo sola novit perfecte experiri quid potest fieri per naturam, quid per artis industriam, quid per fraudem, quid volunt et somniant carmina conjurationes invocationes deprecationes sacrificia....
[2156] Ibid., II, 201.
[2157] Gasquet, 502. Unde multotiens ego misi ultra mare et ad diversas alias regiones et ad nundinas sollemnes ut ipsas res naturales oculis viderem et probarem veritatem creature per visum....
[2158] Bridges, II, 169. Et quae non sunt praesentia in locis in quibus sumus, scimus per alios sapientes qui experti sunt. Sicut Aristoteles auctoritate Alexandri misit duo millia hominum per diversa loca mundi ut experirentur omnia quae sunt in superficie terrae, sicut Plinius testatur in Naturalibus.
[2159] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 46-47. Immo verecundatur si aliquis laicus, vel vetula, vel miles, vel rusticus de rure sciat quae ipse ignorat.
[2160] See Appendix II, Roger Bacon and Gunpowder.
[2161] Epistola de secretis operibus, cap. 4, Brewer, 533. There is a similar passage in the Communia mathematicae, Sloane MS 2156, fol. 83.
[2162] Gasquet, 510; and Bridges, passim.
[2163] Bridges, II, 205. Praeterea certis experimentis probatum est, quod ista festinatio nimia est retardata pluries, et longaevitas prolongata per multos annos per experientias secretas.
[2164] Ibid., 212; Steele (1920), 23-24. For some further account of this Artephius or Artesius see the chapter on William of Auvergne, pp. 351-4.
[2165] Steele (1920), p. 10.
[2166] Bridges, II, 210. Et ideo dicit experimentator bonus in libro de Regimine Senum, quod si illud quod est in quarto gradu temperatum et quod natat in mari, et quod vegetatur in aere, et quod a mari projicitur, et planta Indiae, et quod est in visceribus animalis longae vitae, et duo serpentes quae sunt esca Tyrorum et Aethiopium....
[2167] Ibid., 208. Nam Parisius nuper fuit unus sapiens, qui serpentes quaesivit et unum accepit et scidit eum in parva frusta, nisi quod pellis ventris, super quam reperet, remansit integra, et iste serpens repebat ut poterat ad herbam quandam, cuius tactu statim sanabatur. Et experimentator collegit herbam admirandae virtutis.
A Greek precursor of this tale may be found in the plot of the lost Polyidus of Euripides, as reproduced in Hyginus, Fabulae, 136. “... draco repente ad corpus pueri processit, quod Polyidus, aestimans eum velle consumere, gladio repente percussit et occidit. Altera serpens parem quaerens vidit eam interfectam et progressa herbam attulit atque eius tactu serpenti spiritum restituit....” Polyidus then resuscitated the dead boy by the same method.
Paris continued to be a center of experimental research after Bacon, for in a Wolfenbüttel MS (2503, 15th century, fols. 271-82) we find “Experiments collected by masters of Paris that are greatly praised, and first concerning powders.” The Explicit dates the collection about 1331 A. D. See also Wolfenbüttel 2189, 15th century, fols. 174-5, Quedam experimenta parisiis probata 25.
[2168] Bridges, II, 168-9.
[2169] Ibid., 202. Unde oportet primo credulitatem fieri, donec secundo sequitur experientia, ut tertio ratio comitetur.... Et ideo in principio debet credere his qui experti sunt, vel qui ab expertis fideliter habuerunt, nec debet reprobare veritatem propter hoc, quod eam ignorat, et quia ad eam non habet argumentum.
[2170] Ibid., 219. Postquam enim hoc intuitus sum, nihil fuit meo intellectui difficile ad credendum, dummodo habuit auctorem certum.
[2171] Bridges, II, 211. Nam certum est quod Aethiopes sapientes venerunt in Italiam et Hispaniam et Franciam et Angliam, et in istas terras Christianorum in quibus sunt dracones boni volantes, et per artem occultam quam habent excitant dracones de cavernis suis, et habent sellas et froena in promptu, et equitant super eos et agitant in aere volatu fortissimo, ut dometur rigiditas carnium et temperetur durities, sicut apri et ursi et tauri agitantur canibus et variis percussionibus flagellantur, antequam occidantur pro comestione. Cum ergo sic domesticaverint eos, habent artem praeparandi carnes eorum ... et utuntur eis contra accidentia senectutis, et vitam prolongant et intellectum subtiliant ultra omnem aestimationem. Nam nulla doctrina quae per hominem fieri potest tantam sapientiam inducere valet sicut esus istarum carnium, secundum quod per homines probatae fidei didicimus sine mendacio et dubitatione.
[2172] Steele (1920) p. 9.
[2173] Little, Opus Tertium (1912), 46; Gasquet, 510.
[2174] Little, Opus Tertium (1912), 52.
[2175] Little, Opus Tertium, 53.
[2176] Gasquet, 510. Opera vero istius scientie quedam naturalia sunt in alterationem mundi, quedam in excitationem et inclinationem voluntatum sine coactione.
[2177] Bridges, I, 240.
[2178] See Appendix II for some question as to its authenticity.
[2179] Bridges, I, 29, 241; Opus Tertium, cap. 9, Brewer 29.
[2180] Bridges, I, 396.
[2181] Bridges, I, 395.
[2182] Brewer, 526, 531; Steele (1920), p. 6.
[2183] Opus Tertium, cap. 26, Brewer 99; Bridges, I, 241, 396.
[2184] Epistola de secretis operibus, cap. 1, Brewer, 52.
[2185] Bridges, I, 395 and 399.
[2186] Opus Tertium, Brewer, 47, 95.
[2187] Epistola de secretis operibus, Brewer, 532.
[2188] Bridges, I, 262.
[2189] Ibid., 395-6, 398, 399; Opus Tertium, Brewer, 46-7, 95, 98.
[2190] Epistola de secretis operibus, Brewer, 523.
[2191] Ibid., cap. 2, Brewer, 525.
[2192] Ibid., cap. 3, Brewer, 531.
[2193] Opus Tertium, cap. 26, Brewer, 96.
[2194] Ibid., 98-99.
[2195] Bridges, I, 399.
[2196] Opus Tertium, cap. 26, Brewer, 98.
[2197] Opus Tertium, cap. 13, Brewer, 47, “... etiam experimenta vetularum et sortilegia et carmina earum et omnium magicorum consideravit et similiter omnium joculatorum illusiones et ingenia.”
[2198] Bridges, II, 172.
[2199] Epístola de secretis operibus, cap. 2, Brewer, 526.
[2200] Epistola de secretis operibus, cap. 3, Brewer, 532.
[2201] Bridges, I, 394.
[2202] Bridges, I, 392.
[2203] Brewer, 532.
[2204] Epistola de secretis operibus, Brewer, 352-357.
[2205] Bridges, I, 29, 241; Opus Tertium, cap. 9, Brewer, 29.
[2206] Bridges, II, 208, “Et ideo insidiati sunt animalibus brutis ut scirent vires herbarum et lapidum et metallorum et aliarum rerum, quibus sua corpora rectificabant multis modis tanquam miraculosis.”
[2207] Bridges, II, 218.
[2208] Bridges, I, 398.
[2209] Idem, and Opus Tertium, cap. 26, Brewer, 96.
[2210] Bridges, I, 395.
[2211] Brewer, 96.
[2212] Ibid.
[2213] Bridges, I, 395. “Carmina sunt verba ex intentione animae rationalis prolata, virtutem coeli in ipsa pronunciatione recipientia; unde de mira potestate literarum ego facio mentionem in tertia parte. Per hanc enim potestatem sanantur corpora, fugantur animalia venenosa, advocantur ad manum bruta quaecunque....”
[2214] Opus Tert., cap. 26, Brewer, 99. “Si vero fiunt secundum species et conditiones dictas, tunc sunt philosophica et sapientis incantantis sapienter; ut recitat David propheta.”
[2215] Epistola de secretis operibus, cap. 3, Brewer, 531. “Et ideo valde caute in his sentiendum est; nam de facili potest homo errare, et multi errant in utramque partem; quia aliqui omnem operationem negant, et alii superfluunt, et ad magica declinant.”
[2216] Steele (1920), p. 8.
[2217] Little, Part of the Opus Tertium (1912), 17-18: “Et ideo si ecclesia de studio ordinaret, possent homines boni et sancti laborare in hujusmodi scientiis magicis auctoritate summi pontificis speciali.”
[2218] Bridges, I, 111: “Omne enim efficiens agit per suam virtutem quam facit in materiam subjectam, ut lux solis facit suam virtutem in aere, quae est lumen diffusum per totum mundum a luce solari. Et haec virtus vocatur similitudo, et imago, et species, et multis nominibus, et hanc facit tam substantia quam accidens, et tam spiritualis quam corporalis. Et substantia plus quam accidens, et spiritualis plus quam corporalis. Et haec species facit omnem operationem hujus mundi; nam operatur in sensum, in intellectum, et in totam mundi materiam pro rerum generatione.”
[2219] An interesting instance of its survival in the fifteenth century and of the fact that Roger Bacon was not the only medieval clergyman interested in astrological medicine, is provided by the treatise of an archdeacon of Parma and doctor of medicine on “The domination and projection of rays,” preserved in a Wolfenbüttel MS: 2816, fols. 186-200, “Explicit tractatus de denominatione et proiectione radiorum magistri Mattaei de Guarimbertis de Parma, archydiaconi Parmensis, artium et medicine doctoris, egregie, finitus in Burgo in Brecya in domo magistri Petri Herlensis, in artibus et medicina eximii professoris, anno Domini 1461 incompleto ante carnisprivium per me Jacobum de Huerne.”
[2220] William’s writings exist in manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and are described HL 25: 64 ff.
[2221] Opus Tertium, cap. 9 (Brewer, 27); Bridges, I, 239 and note, giving passages from Bacon’s unpublished writings, also I, 240 and 247. Steele (1920), pp. viii, 3.
[2222] Opus Tertium, caps. 9, 30 (Brewer, 27, 106); Bridges, I, 109, 242 note.
[2223] Bridges, I, 241.
[2224] Ibid., 242-45.
[2225] Ibid., I, 241. “... mathematici isti daemones advocant in adiutorium coelestium dispositionum per coniurationes et sacrificia, quod est omnino nefandum; atque nihilominus maculant suas considerationes in coelestibus per circulos et figuras et characteres vanissimos et carmina stultissima et orationes irrationabiles in quibus confidunt. Praeterea fraudes operum adiungunt, scilicet per consensum, per tenebras, per instrumenta sophistica, per subtilitatem motionis manualis, in quibus sciunt illusionem esse, et multa stultis miranda faciunt per haec in quibus virtus coeli nihil operatur....”
[2226] Opus Tertium, cap. 30, Brewer, 107. “Coelestia sunt causae generationis et corruptionis omnium rerum inferiorum, ut manifestum est cuilibet.” See also Opus Tertium, cap. 11, and Bridges, I, 110.
[2227] Bridges, I, 379.
[2228] Steele, I, 12; III, 228-39; Bridges, II, 450.
[2229] Astrology is discussed by Bacon in Bridges, I, 138-148, 238-269, and 376-404; Gasquet, 512-516; Opus Tertium, Brewer, 105-106, 271-272; Opus Minus, Brewer, 320-321; Compendium Studii Philosophiae, Brewer, 421-422; Little, Part of the Opus Tertium, 1-19; Steele (1920), 1-24; and in many scattered passages.
[2230] Gasquet, 516.
[2231] Bridges, I, 396.
[2232] See p. 202.
[2233] Bridges, I, 382.
[2234] Ibid., I, 381.
[2235] Ibid., I, 384.
[2236] Ibid., I. 386-7.
[2237] Opus Minus, Brewer, 373-4. “Aliqui diu vixerunt sine nutrimento, ut nostris temporibus fuit una mulier in Anglia in diocesi Norwicensi quae non commedit per XX annos et fuit pinguis et in bono statu nullam superfluitatem emittens de corpore, sicut probavit episcopus per fidelem examinationem. Nec fuit miraculum sed opus naturae, nam aliqua constellatio fuit illo tempore potens elementa reducere ad gradum aequalitatis propinquiorem quam ante fuerunt....”
[2238] Bridges, I, 138-39.
[2239] Bridges, I, 386.
[2240] Ibid., 253.
[2241] Both this doctrine and Albumasar’s reference to the birth of Jesus are given in Steele, Opera hactenus inedita, fasc. I, 42-50 and 8-9, as well as in the passages listed in note 4, p. 670.
[2242] Bridges, I, 266: “Et huic sententiae concordat apocalypsis xiii capitulo. Nam dicit quo numerus bestiae est 663, qui numerus est minor praedicto per xxx annos. Sed scriptura in multis locis subticet aliquid de numero completo, nam hic est mos scripturae ut dicit Beda.”
[2243] Bridges, I, 267-68.
[2244] Brewer, 107, 526-27; Bridges, I, 300 ff.
[2245] Bridges, I, 396.
[2246] Bridges, I, 394.
[2247] Bridges, I, 392-94. He cites Josephus’s Antiquities as his authority for the employment of such images by Moses.
[2248] Ibid., 395; Opus Tertium, Brewer, 96-99.
[2249] Bridges, I, 399-403. See Marco Polo, I, 61 and II, 33, concerning the “crafty enchanters and astrologers” in the train of the Great Khan and the five thousand astrologers and soothsayers in Peking.
[2250] A good contemporary illustration is had in the charges brought against Hubert de Burgh by Henry III: “... he had stolen from Henry and given to the prince of Wales” (even Stubbs nods!) “a talisman which rendered its wearer invulnerable; ... he had poisoned the earl of Salisbury, the young earl Marshall, Falkes de Breauté, and Archbishop Richard; he had kept the king under his influence by witchcraft”: Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, 1906, II, 45-46, citing Matthew Paris, III, 221-3. Thus Hubert was accused of theft, poisoning, and sorcery. But there was nothing wrong in possessing such a magic talisman.
[2251] Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, II, 56-7, “... et caveant ne elemosinas sibi missas pro libris in alios usus commutent, nec libros fieri faciant curiosos.”
[2252] P. 49.
[2253] In his Apologetica Defensio Astronomice Veritatis he cites “Bacon magnus doctor anglicus in epistola ad Clementem papam”; in his Alia Secunda Apologetica Defensio eiusdem, arguing that the superstitution of certain astrologers does not invalidate the art, he says, “Et hoc pulcre et diffuse probat Bacon in epistola ad papam Clementem”; and in his Elucidarius he definitely says that it was Bacon whose theory of conjunctions and sects he discussed in the De Legibus et Sectis.
[2254] In the Apologetica Defensio and again in the Vigintiloquium.
[2255] De Recuperatione Terre Sancte (ed. C. V. Langlois, Paris, 1891), 65.
[2256] Bridges, I, 394. “Statim enim vocantur magici, cum tamen sint sapientissimi qui haec sciunt.”