History of the English People, Volume II | Page 5

shrieked the terror-stricken brother. "You lie," was the instant
answer, "for you go shod." The Friar lifted up his foot in disproof, but
the shoe was there. In an agony of repentance he woke and flung the
pair out of window.
[Sidenote: Revival of Theology]
It was with less success that the order struggled against the passion of
the time for knowledge. Their vow of poverty, rigidly interpreted as it
was by their founders, would have denied them the possession of books
or materials for study. "I am your breviary, I am your breviary," Francis
cried passionately to a novice who asked for a psalter. When the news
of a great doctor's reception was brought to him at Paris, his
countenance fell. "I am afraid, my son," he replied, "that such doctors
will be the destruction of my vineyard. They are the true doctors who
with the meekness of wisdom show forth good works for the
edification of their neighbours." One kind of knowledge indeed their
work almost forced on them. The popularity of their preaching soon led
them to the deeper study of theology; within a short time after their
establishment in England we find as many as thirty readers or lecturers
appointed at Hereford, Leicester, Bristol, and other places, and a
regular succession of teachers provided at each University. The Oxford
Dominicans lectured on theology in the nave of their new church while
philosophy was taught in the cloister. The first provincial of the Grey
Friars built a school in their Oxford house and persuaded Grosseteste to
lecture there. His influence after his promotion to the see of Lincoln
was steadily exerted to secure theological study among the Friars, as
well as their establishment in the University; and in this work he was
ably seconded by his scholar, Adam Marsh, or de Marisco, under
whom the Franciscan school at Oxford attained a reputation throughout

Christendom. Lyons, Paris, and Koln borrowed from it their professors:
it was through its influence indeed that Oxford rose to a position hardly
inferior to that of Paris itself as a centre of scholasticism. But the result
of this powerful impulse was soon seen to be fatal to the wider
intellectual activity which had till now characterized the Universities.
Theology in its scholastic form resumed its supremacy in the schools.
Its only efficient rivals were practical studies such as medicine and law.
The last, as he was by far the greatest, instance of the freer and wider
culture which had been the glory of the last century, was Roger Bacon,
and no name better illustrates the rapidity and completeness with which
it passed away.
[Sidenote: Roger Bacon]
Roger Bacon was the child of royalist parents who were driven into
exile and reduced to poverty by the civil wars. From Oxford, where he
studied under Edmund of Abingdon to whom he owed his introduction
to the works of Aristotle, he passed to the University of Paris, and spent
his whole heritage there in costly studies and experiments. "From my
youth up," he writes, "I have laboured at the sciences and tongues. I
have sought the friendship of all men among the Latins who had any
reputation for knowledge. I have caused youths to be instructed in
languages, geometry, arithmetic, the construction of tables and
instruments, and many needful things besides." The difficulties in the
way of such studies as he had resolved to pursue were immense. He
was without instruments or means of experiment. "Without
mathematical instruments no science can be mastered," he complains
afterwards, "and these instruments are not to be found among the Latins,
nor could they be made for two or three hundred pounds. Besides,
better tables are indispensably necessary, tables on which the motions
of the heavens are certified from the beginning to the end of the world
without daily labour, but these tables are worth a king's ransom and
could not be made without a vast expense. I have often attempted the
composition of such tables, but could not finish them through failure of
means and the folly of those whom I had to employ." Books were
difficult and sometimes even impossible to procure. "The scientific
works of Aristotle, of Avicenna, of Seneca, of Cicero, and other

ancients cannot be had without great cost; their principal works have
not been translated into Latin, and copies of others are not to be found
in ordinary libraries or elsewhere. The admirable books of Cicero de
Republica are not to be found anywhere, so far as I can hear, though I
have made anxious enquiry for them in different parts of the world, and
by various messengers. I could never find the works of Seneca, though
I made diligent search for them during twenty years and more. And so
it is with many more most