STUDIEN UND TEXTE ROGER BACON

ZUR GEISTESGESCHICHTE
DES MITTELALTERS AND THE SCIENCES
BEGRUNDET VON
COMMEMORATIVE ESSAYS
JOSEF K OCH
W EITERG EFU H RT VON

PAUL WILPERT und ALBERT ZIMMERMANN

EDITED BY

HERAUSGEGEBEN VON

JA N A. A ER TSEN
JEREMIAH HACKETT

IN ZUSAMMENARBEIT MIT

TZO TC H O BOIADJIEV, MARK D. JORDAN

und ANDREAS SPEER (M a n a g in g E d it o r )

BAND LVII

R O G E R BACON
AND T H E SCIEN CES

' >6 8 V

BRILL
LEIDEN • NEW YORK • KOLN
1997

t
This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library o f C ongress C ataloging-in-Publication D ata

Roger Bacon and the sciences : commemorative essays / edited by
Jeremiah Hackett.
p. cm. — (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des
Mittelalters, ISSN 0169-8125 ; Bd. 57)
Includes indexes.
ISBN 9004100156 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Bacon, Roger, 1214?—1294— Knowledge— Science. 2. Science,
Medieval. 3. Science— Methodology—History— 13th century.
4. Scientists— Great Britain—Biography. I. Hackett, Jeremiah.
II. Series.
Q143.B225R64 1997
509.2—dc21 97-29919
CIP To the memory of James A. Weisheipl and A.C. Crombie
and for the education of two children
Thomas J.R. Hackett & Margaret T.R. Hackett.
All spoke much about Roger Bacon.

D ie D eu tsch e B ibliothek - C IP-E inheitsaufnahm e

R oger Bacon and the sciences: commemorative essays / ed.
by Jeremiah Hackett. - Leiden ; New York ; Koln : Brill, 1997
(Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters : Bd. 57)
ISBN 9 0 -0 4 -1 0 0 1 5 -6

ISSN 0169-8125
ISBN 90 04 10015 6

© Copyright 1997 by Koninklijke Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands

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 CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ................................................................................. ix

Roger Bacon and the Sciences: Introduction ......................................... 1

Jeremiah Hackett
1. Roger Bacon: His Life, Career and Works ................................. 9
Jeremiah Hackett
2. Roger Bacon’s Attitude Toward the Latin Translations and
Translators of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries ................... 25
Richard Lemay
3. Roger Bacon on the Classification of the Sciences ........................ 49
Jeremiah Hackett
4. Roger Bacon and Grammar ......................................................... 67
Irene Rosier-Catach
5. Roger Bacon et la logique ........................................................... 103
Alain De Libera
6. Roger Bacon on Rhetoric and Poetics .......................................... 133
Jeremiah Hackett
7. Roger Bacon’s Knowledge of Mathematics .................................... 151
George Molland
8. Roger Bacon on Astronomy-Astrology: The Sources of the
Scientia Experimentalis .......................................................... 175
Jeremiah Hackett
9. Roger Bacon on Geography and Cartography ................................ 199
David Woodward with Herbert M. Howe
10. Roger Bacon on Music ................................................................ 223
Nancy van Deusen
11. Roger Bacon on Light, Vision, and the Universal Emanation
of Force ....................................................................................... 243
David C. Lindberg
V lll CONTENTS
12. Roger Bacon on Scientia Experimentalis ................................. 277
Jeremiah Hackett
13. An Overview of Roger Bacon’s Alchemy ......................................
William R. Newman
14. Roger Bacon and Medicine: The Paradox of the Forbidden Fruit
and the Secrets of Long Life ........................................................
Faye Getz
15. Roger Bacon and the Secret of Secrets ....................................
Steven J. Williams
16. A Roger Bacon Bibliography (1985-1995) ................................ 395
Thomas S. Maloney
17. Epilogue: Roger Bacon’s Moral Science ....................................... 405
Jeremiah Hackett
Indices ................................................................................................
Index manuscriptorum ..................................................................
Index nominum I (Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern) ...
Index nominum II (Modern) .....................................................
Index rerum ................................................................................
List of Authors .................................................................................... 441
317 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It would be impossible to give a comprehensive account of all those
337 scholars whose interest and encouragement led to the presentation of
this volume. My interest in this project began many years ago when
365 just prior to his death, Denis Bethel, Secretary to the Board of Medi­
eval Studies at University College Dublin, handed a visiting student
his own copy of A.G. Little’s Roger Bacon Essays. Many thanks are
due to faculty and students at Dublin and Toronto in the areas of
Philosophy and Medieval Studies. The initial work in Medieval Studies
was done under the direction of Professor F.X. Martin, OSA and
Dr. Michael Richter. A debt of gratitude is due also to Professor
Bieler and Professor O ’Meara for an introduction to Neoplatonism.
411 My interest in the thought of Roger Bacon owes a great deal to
the late James A. Weisheipl O.P. who introduced me to the History
413
414 of Medieval Science. And acknowledgment of the faculty and students
420 at Toronto is required. James A. Weisheipl was a dedicated researcher
and teacher and he above all is to be acknowledged here.
426
The actual suggestion for the volume came from Professor David
C. Lindberg. And a challenge to do it came from a fellow student,
William O. Shorten, mathematicus. The editor is also grateful to Pro­
fessor A.C. Crombie for his encouragement of this project. He wishes
to acknowledge Professor A. Hyman and Professor Paul Oskar
Kristeller for much encouragement in the research which led to this
work. Professor Richard Lemay was generous with advice concern­
ing Abu M a'shar and Pseudo-Ptolemy’s Centiloquium.
Many thanks are due to his colleagues at the University of South
Carolina, and to his family. His colleagues may have thought at times
that he had metamorphosed into Roger Bacon, but were kind enough
not to say so. His children did say so and forced him to promise
that for their pains he would dedicate the volume to them. And that
I will do so because I believe that it is important that they learn
the truth about the past in so far as we can learn the truth about
the past. And unlike cheap mythologies, there is no short-cut to the
truth even in the case of one like Roger Bacon, who, on account of
Robert Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, among other things,
came to be seen as a Magus in Renaissance England.
X ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A special word of thanks is due to the Department of Philosophy
and to its Chair, Professor Davis Whitney Baird, who provided funds
for the translation work from French in the volume. Thanks are also
due to the translator, David C. Miller, M.F.A. In the course of pre­
paring this volume, the editor was greatly helped by the Adminis­
trative Assistants in the Department of Philosophy, Ms. Joanna
Woodward, and Ms. Joan Spencer-Amado. He wishes to acknowl­
edge the advice and assistance of Ms. Elna Corwin, Mr. Berry Mobley,
Mr. Homer R. Steedly Jr. of the College of Liberal Arts computer
laboratory, and Mr. Graham Dennis.
Much gratitude is due to Librarians at London, Oxford, Paris, Rome,
Dublin, Toronto, and at the University of South Carolina’s Thomas
Cooper Library, and the Caroliniana Library. Further, support from
the following institutions enabled the research to be undertaken: The
American Philosophical Society; The National Endowment for the
Humanities; The University of South Carolina Research and Pro­
ductivity Scholarship; The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies,
Toronto.
Finally, an acknowledgment of four high school teachers “the four
horsemen”, at Good Counsel, New Ross, a town built by a great
man, William Marshall, just before “the times” of Roger Bacon, is
in order. They instilled a respect for the Liberal Arts in its full scope.
They would have enjoyed meeting Roger Bacon.
ROGER BACON AND THE SCIENCES: INTRO DU CTIO N
Jeremiah Hackett
It is about 700 years since the death of the Medieval scientist, phi­
losopher, and moral-religious author, Roger Bacon. He is known to
modern readers in the profile which was constructed by popular
writers on science in the 19th century. Much of this work, which is
now forgotten, is the work of historical fiction and of scientific
hagiography. And yet, while it may have been forgotten, it has had
a major influence on all early 20th century entries on Roger Bacon
in Dictionaries, Encyclopaedias, and popular works on History. The
image of Bacon as the Romantic hero of science who six hundred
years before the Modern Scientific Revolution had anticipated that
revolution continued into the popular imagination in the 20th century.
Yet, as is well-known, Bacon was a Medieval philosopher, scientist
and commentator on moral and religious topics. He was not a Modem
or Post-Modem scientist. Still, his contribution to the Liberal Arts
(humanities and sciences) was very significant, although he has come
down to us in the literature as something of a pariah. There will be
a measure of revision in these essays but that revision is motivated
by a concern with evidence and with argument. And if there are
places where Roger Bacon seems to anticipate aspects of the Modem
World, they should be evaluated carefully.
Serious work on the recovery and edition of Bacon’s works began
with Victor Cousin and Emile Charles. Brewer’s edition of the Opus
minus, Opus tertium and the Epistola de secretis operibus was published in
1859. In the late nineteenth century, German scholars, particularly
in the fields of optics, philosophy of nature and moral philosophy
made significant contributions to the scientific study of Bacon’s works:
one thinks of Sebastian Vogl, Eilhard Wiedemann and Ludwig Baur
among other.
The new edition of the unpublished works, the Opera hactenus inedita
Rogeri Bacon began in 1905 under the editorship of Robert Steele.
Finally, it appeared to be the case that a truly scientific and histori­
cally grounded account could be given of the life, career and works
of Roger Bacon, known as the Doctor Mirabilis.
2 JEREMIAH HACKETT
In 1914, the distinguished scholar of Medieval Franciscan culture,
Professor A.G. Little, edited a volume: Roger Bacon Essays (1914). This
work was a true landmark in scholarship. Working with a full inter­
national body of scholars, A.G. Little presented the public with a
judicious interpretation of the main elements of Bacon’s scientific
interests. Despite the catasthrope of “The Great War,” Robert Steele
managed to move ahead with the edited volumes. This enormous
task continued in cooperation with Ferdnand M. Delorme OFM, A.G.
Little and F. Withington. In 1940 in the midst of World War II,
volume XVI, the Communia mathematical was completed.
During and after world war I, scholars such as Lynn Thorndike,
Roul Carton and Pierre Duhem took a closer look at Roger Bacon’s
science. Due to the iconoclasm of both Thorndike and Duhem, the
romantic image of Bacon as a Modern 19th century scientist before
his time was shattered. And yet the myth lived on in the papers,
encyclopaedias and books. However, matters were not so simple.
Duhem had edited part of the Opus tertium, and thus recognised that
Bacon had in fact done some detailed work in both Natural Philoso­
phy such as Commentaries on Aristode’s Physica and in experimental
science dealing with meteorological phenomena. The whole issue of
the nature and meaning of Medieval Science and its relationship to
the development of Classical Early Modern Science (i.e. the science
of Galileo, Descartes and Francis Bacon) was opened up anew by
the studies of Annalise Meier, Marshall Glagett and Alastair Crombie.
The work of A.C. Crombie: Robert Grosseteste and the Origins of Experi­
mental Science 1200-1700 was a milestone on this search. In this work,
Crombie effectively demonstrated that the qualitative model of a combi­
nation of Mathematical thinking and experimental procedure began
at the Universities of Oxford and Paris in the 13th century, and
among the main representatives were Robert Grosseteste and Roger
Bacon. The manner in which greater development in quantification
and in experimentation developed from about 1277 up to Galileo is
a story which is still being written by modem historians of late medi­
eval science. And finally, in the light of the research of many schol­
ars, among them Edward Rosen, Edward Grant, the late James A.
Weisheipl, David C. Lindberg, William A. Wallace, John E. Murdoch
and E. Sylla, a greater sense of the complexity of the issues and of
the historical development of this science is being realized. And still,
the old myths continue to haunt the literature.
Further, much work is being done on books of secrets. The recent
ROGER BACON AND THE SCIENCES: INTRODUCTION 3
study by William Eamon on the role of secret books in Renaissance
science details the impact of this medieval tradition on early modern
science. And yet, much more work is needed in this area. But it is
becoming apparent that the whole story of the transmission of science
and philosophy from the 13th to the 17th century is being re-written
on the basis of new texts, new questions and new answers. And still,
old myths, outworn stories and sometimes plain falsehoods still win
the attention of modern audiences whose mind has been so de-
historicized that they are prepared to accept that last magical sound
bite or image as the truth.
After World War II, the two important studies of Roger Bacon’s
life and works by Theodore Crowley and Stewart C. Easton gave
some new life to Bacon research. F. Alessio, E. Massa and E. Bettoni
among others presented new studies and editions.
Perhaps, the most dramatic discovery in Bacon studies was the
identification of the missing section of the Opus maius, part three, De
signis (Bacon’s semiotics) by the late Jan Pinborg, K.M. Fredborg and
L. Nielsen.
Still, there was one major lacuna. No critical edition of the center-
piece, of Bacon’s work on agency and force existed. This was remedied
in 1983 with the publication of David C. Lindberg’s critical edition
of the De multiplication specierum and the De speculis comburentibus. This
careful work opened up a new era in Bacon studies, and became a
bench-mark for all new editions of Bacon’s works.
It became clear from this work that the texts of Bacon (even the
texts of Robert Steele) are in need of serious critical re-edition. Thomas
S. Maloney has done this for the Compendium studii theologiae, previ­
ously edited by H. Rashdall. The result of these editions is a deepening
of our knowledge, a more accurate text, and an expanded interpre­
tation based on a closer reading of the texts. There have also been
good translations. Among these are the translation with notes by
Thomas S. Maloney on Bacon’s account of Universals and Stanton
J. Linden’s valuable translation with notes of the Mirror of Alchemy.
The editor of the present work planned the volume with the inten­
tion of highlighting two aspects of Bacon’s work. First, it was impor­
tant to see how Bacon’s account of the linguistic, natural and moral
sciences mirrored the curriculum of study at the Medieval University.
It was necessary to do this so that the role which University teaching
and research did play in Medieval Science would be recognized.
Second, it was important that the volume reflect the development of
4 ROGER BACON AND THE SCIENCES: INTRODUCTION
JEREMIAH HACKETT
Bacon’s thought in his Opus Maius (1266-8). There has been no criti­
cal study of this work by any modern historian of philosophy, sci­
ence, or morals. The present volume is intended as An Introduction to
the Opus maius especially and also to related works. It can be jusdy
claimed that it is the first such study. And it will be obvious from
the present volume why such an introduction had to be a coopera­
tive venture.
Chapter one gives a review of the historical record on Bacon’s life
and career. It traces the life of a medieval thinker who for the most
part lived in Oxford and Paris and who among Medieval writers
gives us one interpretation of the crises of his times. Bacon’s com­
ments on his times and on matters of scholarship have been mined
by historians of philosophy and science despite the fact that some
who do not like the man tend to dismiss his testimony tout court. And
yet, as Sir Richard Southern has demonstrated in his work on Robert
Grosseteste, a judicious reading of Bacon’s texts can open up new
vistas on the events of his times.
Chapter two deals with Roger Bacon’s attitude towards Translators
in the context of the many Parisian condemnations of Philosophy
and science in the period from 1210-1277. Roger Bacon has his own
interpretation of these events, and it is important to give it a critical
assessment. Here, Richard Lemay looks at Bacon in the context of
his teaching at the University of Paris. Bacon’s attitudes to the trans­
lators, especially to Hermannus Allemannus and William of Moerbecke
raise serious questions. And since Bacon made use of so much trans­
lated materials, an account of the translation issue is important.
Roger Bacon did not write a treatise on the Classification of the
Sciences as did his fellow Master in Arts and near contemporary,
Robert Kilwardby. The De ortu scientiarum of Kilwardby marks a turning
point. After 1250, one finds no regular course on the division of the
sciences. From that point on, individual teachers present their divi­
sions of the sciences at the beginning of particular works. This is
very apparent in the case of Roger Bacon. This chapter brings together
his thoughts on this topic in the context of the Medieval division of
the sciences from Boethius to 1270. And it sets the scene for a discus­
sion of Roger Bacon and the Sciences.
The next three chapters deal with Bacon and language. In the
Medieval curriculum this was the Trivium of Grammar, Logic and
5
Rhetoric. Grammar and Logic would roughly correspond to Linguis­
tics and Logic in a modern university. Irene Rosier-Catach presents
a synthesis of our current knowledge of Bacon’s approach to Gram­
mar. She situates his work in the context of grammatical studies at
the University of Paris from the 1230’s to the 1260’s.
Alain De Libera presents an account of Bacon’s contribution to
logical theory. The scholarship of the past fifteen years has demon­
strated the central place which Bacon occupied in the teaching on
Logic and in general reflection on the nature of Logic.
Bacon makes many comments on Rhetoric and Poetics through­
out his later works. The most startling one is that he simply rejects
the division of the Trivium. He thinks that it is a philosophical mis­
take to set rhetoric in opposition to logic. The theoretical part of
Rhetoric finds a home in the study of Logic; the practical part
is closely related to Moral Philosophy. Jeremiah Hackett provides
a summary of Bacon’s views and notes his role as an important
transitional figure on these topics at the University of Paris (1256-
1277).
We lack a study of the overall scope of Bacon’s mathematical knowl­
edge. What were his sources? What was the level of his knowledge?
In his overview, George Molland does a thorough review of Bacon’s
works on mathematics and on his debt to the new translations of
ancient and medieval texts. Bacon did not write on mathematics in
the systematic way he did on Force and on Perespectiva. In general, as
he indicates in Opus tertium, he acknowledges the work of well-known
mathematicians. He did write a Communia mathematical but while it
does deal with proportion and with quantity, it is more like a treatise
on the scope and applications of mathematics.
Roger Bacon developed his concept of a Scientia experimentalis in
explicit connection with astronomy and astrology. It is important, there­
fore, to examine his ideas on this topic as given in Opus maius, part
four, and in related works. Which concerns in astronomy/astrology
led Bacon to the formulation of a concept of a Scientia experimentalist
Jeremiah Hackett sets out the scope of this issue.
Nancy van Deusen presents an introductory account of Bacon’s
views on Music. And here, one can see just how important Music
was as part of the medieval Quadrivium. We learn that Bacon held
the study of music in high regard. Further, this account sheds im­
portant light on the inter-relation of Aristotle and Augustine in the
thirteenth century.
6 JEREMIAH HACKETT
Bacon’s remarks on Geography in Opus mains, part four, provide us
with evidence for his overall knowledge of geography and cartography.
They also shed light on his attention to Travel Writers. Further, they
are of some historical importance since a scholarly consensus holds
that this work was known to and used by Christopher Columbus in
the 1490’s. David Woodward and Herbert M. Howe present a judi­
cious assessment of Bacon’s knowledge in these two fields.
The central doctrine in Bacon’s later philosophy is undoubtedly the
doctrine of the multiplication of species (De multiplications specierum) and
closely tied to it is the doctrine on light and vision. David C. Lindberg,
who has just recently completed the critical edition of the Perspectiva
(= Opus maius, part five), presents a synthesis of Bacon’s contribution
to a doctine of Light, Vision and the Universal Emanation of Force.
Lindberg’s conclusion is important: Roger Bacon was The Philosopher
and Scientist who taught the Latin West to think about light, vision
and force. Pecham and Witelo were his younger contemporaries who
shared in this task. Bacon opened the eyes of Western thinkers to
the need to do serious mathematical and physical-experimental work
on these topics. And it is here that one notices the extraordinary
deepening of physical and optical knowledge that took place since
Grosseteste’s short writings on these topics in the 1220’s.
The topic of Scientia experimental has been one of the most de­
bated issues in Bacon scholarship. This topic has lead to Bacon being
identified in the Renaissance as a Magus. Others in the 19th century
saw him as one who grasped modem scientific method in a pre­
modern age. In Opus maius, part six, and in related texts, he presents
his views on the nature and methodology of a Scientia experimentalis.
This term is ambiguous. For Bacon, it means a natural science, but
it can also mean a phenomenology of experience, and it can mean
what we mean today by philosophy of science, that is a critical re­
flection on the nature and use of science. This chapter will give a
summary of Bacon’s views on Scientia experimentalis and will show its
connection with language study, mathematics, perspectiva and with moral
science. Jeremiah Hackett presents a critical assessment of this issue.
Bacon’s edited works contain one volume on medicine (Opera, Vol. IX,
ed. A.G. Little and E. Withington) and there are many references to
medical matters throughout his later works. Faye Getz presents a
critical assessment of Bacon’s contribution to medieval medicine. She
ROGER BACON AND THE SCIENCES: INTRODUCTION 7
gives an outline of Bacon’s influence on later medical writers. And
she also details the manner in which Bacon became a hero for English
medicine in the late middle ages.
Bacon wrote on Alchemy and listed it as an example of the second
prerogative of his Scientia experimentalis. William Newman presents a
critical assessment of Bacon’s writings in Alchemy. Here, again, we
see the historical profile which has come down the centuries being
changed by good historical method and scholarship. And we get a
better estimate of Bacon’s contribution and influence in this field.
Indeed, we learn how so many late Medieval texts on Alchemy came
to be attributed to Roger Bacon.
Roger Bacon makes much use of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum
secretorum. This is perhaps, the most important work in the genre
“Mirror of Princes” written in the Middle Ages. In one version, trans­
lated from Arabic by Philip of Tripoli, it became the vade-mecum of
the prince long before another book with the latter name gained
fame. Steven J. Williams does a study of this text and its place in
Bacon’s life and works.
Bacon, in the Opus maius, very deliberately set out a Stoic division of
Philosophy into: a) language study, b) study of nature, c) study of
morals. But Bacon lived in the Middle Ages, and he felt obliged to
give a concordantium discordantium opinionum. In his Opus maius, part seven,
the Moralis philosophic, which is a sizable volume in the modern edi­
tion, Bacon presents us with an outline of the scope of Moral Sci­
ence. Moral Science for Bacon encompasses the following: the nature
of moral science, metaphysics and morals, a philosophical anthropo­
logy based on a synthesis of Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic doctrine,
a social ethic based on Avicenna, an extended account of theory of
virtue (mostly an anthology of Seneca’s writings), an account of com­
parative religion, the role of persuasion (rhetoric and poetics) in morals
and religion, and legal matter. Jeremiah Hackett presents an Epilogue
on Bacon’s Moralis philosophia as the teleological aim of Bacon’s Opus
maius. In other words, language study and the study of nature finds
its telos in a Moral philosophy. And this Moralis philosophia is inti­
mately tied to political philosophy. One is left with the sense that
Bacon subordinates Ethics to the demands of political necessity. But
then he was writing for Prelates and Princes and not for the conduct
of monastics.
Finally, Thomas S. Maloney reviews new work on Bacon since
8 JEREMIAH HACKETT

the publication of the 1987 addition to the Alessio bibliography of

1959. A review of Bacon’s works and a review of new Manuscript
discoveries will appear in a forthcoming volume of Vivarium on Bacon 1. ROGER BACON: HIS LIFE, CAREER AND WORKS
as an Aristotelian Commentator. This will also include a full list of
Bacon’s authentic works. Jeremiah Hackett

A. Life and Career

There is no complete agreement among scholars on the chronology

of Roger Bacon’s career. Roger Bacon was bom about 1214 or 1220.
Modern scholars tend to argue for the latter date, but even on this
matter there is disagreement. Further, while most scholars are in agree­
ment that Bacon died about 1292, there is a lack of evidence concern­
ing the years from 1278 to 1292. There is evidence that sometime
after 1277-8, Roger Bacon returned to Oxford from Paris, edited
the Secretum secretorum, completed his Compendium studii theologiae and
may have edited other works.
The actual evidence for a firm historical knowledge of the life is
slim. .The modern commonly accepted view is that set out by Theo­
dore Crowley, and more recently developed by David C. Lindberg.1
This framework for his chronology is, however, for the most part
dependent on one piece of reminiscence by Bacon, which he set out
in the Opus tertium (ca. 1267-8). It reads:
I have labored much in sciences and languages, and I have up to now
devoted forty years [to them] after I first learned the Alphabetum; and
I was always studious. Apart from two of these forty years I was always
[engaged] in study [in studio], and I had many expenses just as others
commonly have. Nevertheless, provided I had first composed a compen­
dium, I am certain that within a quarter or half a year I could directly
teach a solicitous and confident person whatever I knew of those sci­
ences and languages. And it is known that no one worked in so many
sciences and languages as I did, nor so much as I did. Indeed, when
I was living in the other state of life, people marvelled that I survived
the abundance of my work. And still, I was just as involved in studies

1 Theodore Crowley, O.F.M., Roger Bacon: The Problem o f the Soul in His Philosophi­
cal Commentaries, (Louvain/Dublin, 1952), 17-78; David C. Lindberg, Roger Bacon’s
Philosophy of Nature: A Critical Edition, with English Translation, Introduction, and Notes of De
multiplicatione specierum and De speculis comburentibus, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).
See also A.C. Crombie and John North, “Roger Bacon,” in Dictionary of Scientific
Biography, I, 377-85, New York, 1970.
 10 JEREMIAH HACKETT
afterwards as I had been before. But I did not work all that much,
since in the pursuit of Wisdom this was not required.2
In the light of this passage, Crowley and more recently, Lindberg,
favor the view that Bacon was born about 1220. This would mean
that Bacon may have been a student at Oxford from about 1234 to
1241. Earlier, in 1914, A.G. Little argued that the words in studio
had to be taken to mean at a University, and that the word alphabetum
meant his early education as a whole.3 For entirely different reasons,
Charles Jourdain had earlier suggested that Bacon was born about
1210.4 In his new edition of the Compendium studii theologiae, Thomas S.
Maloney favors the view of A.G. Little and takes 1214 as the most
likely date of birth.5 In a recent study, Jeremiah Hackett presents an
analysis of the conflicting interpretations.6 Here, it is important to
examine some aspects of the problem and to note some consequences
of both chronologies for Bacon’s relationship to Robert Grosseteste
and Adam Marsh.7
The point that Bacon is making for the Pope in the relevant section
of the Opus tertium is that he has had a long career in the Arts and
2 Opus maius, ed. Brewer, 65: Multum laborvi in scientia et linguis, et posui jam
quadraginta annos postquam didici primo alphabetum; et fui semper studiosus; et
praeter duos annos de istis quadraginta fui semper in studio, et habui expensas
multas, sicut alii communiter; et tamen certus sum quod infra quartum anni, aut
dimidium anni, ego docerem ore meo hominem sollicitum et confidentem, quicquid
scio de potestate scientiarum et linguarum, dummodo composuissem primo scriptum
sub compendio. Et notum est quod nullus in tot scientiis et linguis laboravit, nec
tantum, quia homines mirabantur in alio statu quod vixi propter superfluum laborem;
et tamen postea fuit ita studiosus sicut ante. Sed non tantum laboravi, quia non fuit
necesse propter exercitium sapientiae.
3 A.G. Little, “On Roger Bacon’s Life and Works,” in A.G. Litde, ed. Roger Bacon
Essays: Contributed by Various Writers on the Occasion o f the Commemoration of the Seventh
Centenary of his Birth, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914), 1-32; See also A.G. Little,
“Roger Bacon,” Proceedings of the British Academy 14 (1928).
4 Charles Jourdain, “Discussions de quelques points de la biographie de Roger
Bacon,” Comptes rendus des seances de I’Acadmie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (Paris, O ct.-
Dec. 1874).
5 Thomas S. Maloney, ed., Roger Bacon: Compendium of the Study o f Theology, (Leiden,
1988; Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 20).
6 Jeremiah Hackett, “Roger Bacon,” in Medieval Philosophers (Dictionary of Literary
Biography, Vol. 115, ed. Jeremiah Hackett, Detroit/London, 1992), 90-102; Ibid.,
“Scientia experimentalis: From Robert Grosseteste to Roger Bacon,” in Robert Grosseteste:
New Perspectives on His Thought and Scholarship, ed. James McEvoy, (Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic Publishers, 1995—Instrumenta Patristica XXVII), 89-120. For Bacon’s
career, see 89-103.
7 See R.W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste: The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval
Europe, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
ROGER BACON! HIS LIFE, CAREER AND WORKS 11
Sciences, indeed one which seems to have been much longer
than the normal. Bacon’s Opus tertium appeal to Pope Clement IV
reads like a Grant application. He is saying that he, of all his contem­
poraries at the Universities of Oxford and Paris, is best equipped to
set up a renewed model of University teaching and research. One
will note that other texts support the view that Bacon had been
involved in arts and sciences a iuventute. Further, in the relevant chapter
in the Opus tertium, from which the above passage is taken, it is clear
that Bacon uses the word Alphabetum to mean a training in the arts
[Alphabetum philosophiae), which in the Medieval University began at
13/14 and ended at about 21 years of age. One also notices that in
his second career, after about 1256 as a Franciscan friar, he remained
studious, but he did not hold a public teaching office, since that was
not required of him.
In reading the above text from the Opus tertium, I am inclined to
the view that by 1267 or 1268 he had devoted forty years to studies
(he was always given to study during these years). However, apart
from two years absence from a studium or from formal studies, he
was always in studio, and he had many expenses as scholars normally
do. And he began this work in “the sciences and languages” after he
first learned the rudiments (the alphabetum) of these studies. That is,
about thirteen or fourteen years of age. If this is a correct reading
of this passage, we have to conclude that sometime around 1228,
Bacon entered University at Oxford, and therefore would have re­
ceived his M.A. around 1236. This would mean that he would have
been born ca. 1214 or 1215.
Regardless of which chronology is correct, it does seem that Bacon
could not have been a student in the arts under Robert Grosseteste.
The latter had departed University teaching to become lector to the
Franciscans in 1229, and in 1235, he became Bishop of Lincoln.
However, it is most likely that Bacon would have seen Robert
Grosseteste, and undoubtedly would have been influenced by his
reputation as a great scholar and as a patron of the new Franciscan
Order at Oxford. The constant repetition of Nam vidimus with refer­
ence to Robert Grosseteste, Adam Marsh and other Scholars associ­
ated with Oxford and with Lincoln indicate that he had seen these
scholars and was clearly influenced by their example.8
8 See Opus maius, ed. Bridges, Vol. Ill, 88-89: Nam vidimus aliquos de antiquis qui
laboraverunt in linguis sicut fuit dominus Robertus praefatus translator et episcopus, et
 12 JEREMIAH HACKETT
That Bacon picked up his interest in sciences, and especially in
the science of Perspectiva at Oxford seems to follow from some remarks
penned in 1267. Again, in the Opus tertium, he argues that the science
of Perspectiva is the key to a scientific knowledge of all sensible things
and to “the whole machine of the world” \totam mundi machinam, et in
coelestibus et in inferioribus]. He continues:
However, this science is not yet taught at Paris, nor among the Latins
except twice at Oxford in England, and there are not three people
who know the power of this science. Whence that one who made him­
self an authority (i.e. Albertus Magnus), concerning whom I spoke above,
knew nothing about the power o f this science, as appears in his books,
because he did not write a book about this science and he would have
done so if he had known it.9
Bacon, quite clearly, in 1267, associated the introduction of Perspectiva
as a fifth subject in addition to the traditional Quadrivium [Arithmetic,
Geometry, Astronomy, Music] with the University of Oxford. By 1267,
according to Bacon, it had not been formally introduced to the curricu­
lum at the University of Paris. In another work, the Tractatus de expe-
rientia in communi, which is a recension of the Opus maius VI: De scientia
experimentali, Bacon makes a remark about Perspectiva which suggests
that he connects it with Grosseteste and with Oxford. He states:
For in the translation of the books o f the Meteorology available among
the Latins up to the present, it is said that a rainbow is not had from
the rays of the moon except twice in fifty years. And the greatest natural
Philosopher and Expert on Perspectiva whom I saw wished to save this truth
Thomas venerabilis ansistes Sancti David nuper defunctus, et frater Adam de Marisco,
et Magister Hermannus translator, et quidam alii sapientes. See also Compendium
studii philosophise, ed. Brewer, 428: (speaking about how the “saeculares” for forty
years, that is since about 1230 have neglected true and tried methods of study in
philosophy and theology drawn as they are by honors and riches, he adds): Ita
quod totaliter dimiserunt vias antiquorum sapientum, quorum aliquos vidimus nostri
temporibus; scilicet, dominum Robertum, quondam episcopum Lincolniensem, sanctae
memoriae, et dominum Thomam, episcopum Sancti David in Wallia, et fratrem
Adam de Marisco, et Magistrum Robertum de Marisco, et Magistros Willelmum
Lupum, et Willielmum de Schyrewode, et aliquos alios eis similes, quorum vestigia
modemi saeculares omnino dimiserunt. . . .
One should note the connection of all of these scholars with Lincoln. While Roger
Bacon may have visited Oxford sometime between 1247 and 1257, it is not impos­
sible that he would have visited Lincoln especially in view of his interest in Logic
and the presence there of William of Schyrewode, who Bacon ranked as the best
representative in philosophia communis. Bacon is well acquainted with the work in
languages and in the sciences of Grosseteste and his circle.
9 Opus tertium, ed. Brewer, 37-38.
ROGER BACON: HIS LIFE, CAREER AND WORKS 13
and give its cause during the time in which I had been his student
(Disciple) from my youth. But he himself was mislead by arguments
and false translations, since experience teaches that in every full moon,
if the moon shines without the impediment of clouds and vapour,
and the moist material is generated opposite the moon, a rainbow is
necessarily generated.10
Since it would appear that Bacon disregards Albertus Magnus as
“the greatest Natural Philosopher and Expert on Perspectiva”, and since
there are scarcely any other candidates, one naturally thinks that
Bacon may be giving us a reference to Robert Grosseteste. Indeed,
Bacon in 1267 was not above correcting Grosseteste’s scientific theo­
ries, and he does so specifically in regard to the Rainbow.11 It would
appear then that in some sense of the word, Bacon was a disciple of
Grosseteste a iuventute. But this does not mean that he was a student
of Grosseteste in artibus. At the most, it means that he saw the great
man, that he imitated his program of study and that he, perhaps,
made a serious study of his scientific writings. This would definitely
be the case if Bacon were bom about 1214. He could have been a
student at Oxford from about 1227-8 to 1235-36. But if he were
born in 1220, he would not have gone to Oxford before 1234, and
by 1235, Grosseteste had become Bishop of Lincoln.
There is a reference to a Roger Bacon, Clericus de curia Regis, who
displayed his caustic wit before the King at Oxford in 1233.12 And
since Roger Bacon had a lifelong interest in the care of the Common­
wealth, one ought not lightly dismiss this small piece of evidence.
Scholars are unsure about the date of Bacon’s inception as Master of
Arts at the University of Paris. David C. Lindberg remarks that: “It
was doubtless during the 1240’s that Bacon began to lecture in the
faculty of Arts at Paris.”13 Thomas S. Maloney suggests that: “Some­
time in or shortly after 1245 Bacon accepted an invitation to teach
in the faculty of arts at the University of Paris.. . .”14 The late James A.
Weisheipl reminded us that 1237 was a significant date in Bacon’s
mind, and that Bacon attests that he taught in the arts longer than
10 Jeremiah M.G. Hackett, ed. Tractatus de experientia in communi, in The Meaning of
Experimental Science (Scientia experimentalis) the Philosophy of Roger Bacon (Toronto, University
of Toronto Ph.D., 1983), 292-93.
11 See Jeremiah Hackett, “Roger Bacon on Scientia experimentalis,” below.
12 Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, III, 244—5.
13 David C. Lindberg, op. cit., xvii.
14 Thomas S. Maloney, op. cit.
 14 JEREMIAH HACKETT
any other Master. Weisheipl notes that “he [Bacon] was undoubtedly
one of the earliest Parisian Masters to expound the Aristotelian books
in the faculty of arts after the earlier prohibition was relaxed. One of
his colleagues in the faculty of arts was certainly Peter of Spain, later
Pope John XXI.”15 Bacon tells us that some twenty years before 1267,
he had ceased to examine M.A. students on difficult scientific and
mathematical questions which the other teachers could not examine.16
It is a common assumption among scholars that between 1247
and 1267, Bacon spent two thousand librae on scientific matters, instru­
ments and on books of Secrets.17 But this is problematic. After 1256,
as a Franciscan friar, he would not have been able to dispose of
such a sum of money. But since Bacon tells us that he was involved
in “languages and sciences a iuventute, we have to assume that this
must have been the ten or twenty years prior to 1256. Moreover, he
tells us that some of this money was used to seek out the friendship
of the Sapientes (the Wise). This could mean that Bacon travelled outside
of Paris, and especially to Oxford. We can conclude that sometime
around or after 1247, Bacon ceased to be a Regent Master in the
Arts at the University of Paris.
It has been the common assumption of Bacon scholars that some
time between 1247-56 he must have returned from Paris to Oxford,
where he was trained in theology by Adam Marsh. Theodore Crowley
presented evidence from the Opus tertium, which, he thought, was proof
that Bacon was definitely a student of Adam Marsh in Theology
during these years. In a recent paper, I analyzed this evidence and
concluded that it enables us to conclude that Bacon did in fact speak
with Adam Marsh, but there is reason to think that he could have
met with Adam Marsh at Paris in 1245 or indeed at a later date
such as 1259.18
15 James A. Weisheipl, “Science in the Thirteenth Century,” in J.I. Catto, ed. The
Early Oxford Schools (The History of the University of Oxford, ed. T.H. Ashton, Vol. I:
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 435-70. See p. 454: Bacon may have begun his
studies in Oxford in the early 1230’s, but he soon went to Paris for his degree in
Arts, and there, he said, he taught longer than any other master. This would cer­
tainly be true if he lectured on the “new Aristode” from 1237—a significant date
for Bacon until his departure from the schools in 1247. He was undoubtedly one
of the earliest Parisian masters to expound the Aristotelian books in the faculty of
arts after the earlier prohibition was relaxed. One of his colleagues I the faculty of
arts was certainly Peter of Spain, later Pope John XXI.
16 Opus tertium, ed. Brewer, 139.
17 See Weisheipl, art. cit., 454-5.
18 Jeremiah Hackett, art. cit., 94-102. One should also note that he could have
seen Adam Marsh in 1259 since the latter was in France on a diplomatic mission.
ROGER BACON! HIS LIFE, CAREER AND WORKS 15
Further, there is evidence which places Bacon in Paris in 1247,
1251 and 1256, so it is unlikely that he was formally a theology
student at Oxford between 1247 and 1256. This does not mean that
he did not visit his own family in England between 1247 and 1256.19
At this time, before the Civil War between the Barons and the King,
his family was prominent. One might even suggest (although the
evidence is not strong) that for a person of Bacon’s scholarly inter­
ests a visit to Oxford or, perhaps, to the Bishop of Lincoln or to one
of his Houses of Study, where translation work was being done, is
not impossible. In my view, it is a real possibility which future evi­
dence may verify. The evident interest of Bacon in the recovery of
Ancient ethical texts (i.e. Seneca’s Dialogues in the 1260’s) and in the
Mcomachean Ethics (Grosseteste’s translation was completed in 1249)
would point in this direction. However, until more evidence has been
reviewed, and new evidence comes to light, the matter of Bacon’s
whereabouts between 1247-56 should remain an open issue.
Bacon tells us that he twice heard William of Auvergne address
the Convocation of the University of Paris. And it is in the context
of this remark that he mentions both Adam Marsh and Robert
Grosseteste. He mentions that they “supported the same [teaching of
the Bishop of Paris on the agent intellect].” Both English clerics
departed England on November 18, 1244 and reached Lyons on
7 January 1245 to prepare for the Council of Lyons. Is it not pos­
sible that Bacon met them at this time? Certainly, after the Council
of Lyons, Grosseteste hastened to get Adam Marsh back to England
19 See A.B. Emden, “Accounts Relating to an Early Oxford House of Scholars,”
Oxoniensia, 31 (1966), 77-81 for the suggestion that Master Nicholas Bacon and a
Peter Bacon belonged to a domus scholarum or small household of graduate students
and scholars at the University of Oxford, 1244-49. The former may have been
installed by Bishop Grosseteste as rector of the moiety of Stoke Rochford, Lincoln­
shire in 1244-45. A.B. Emden makes the following suggestion: “The association of
Nicholas and Peter Bacon with this small graduate household, and Nicholas’s pre­
sumed ownership of this copy of the treatises of Avicenna and other Arab philoso­
phers invite speculation whether Nicholas and Peter may not have been related to
distinguished contemporary bearing their surname, Fr. Roger Bacon, O.F.M., among
whose many interests, the works of these philosophers were certainly one.” One
might comment that since Roger Bacon did retire from his Professorship in philoso­
phy sometime around 1247/8, then, a visit to Oxford or Lincoln is a real possibility.
In an earlier study, I simply commented on the lack of hard evidence for his visit
and I questioned Crowley’s claim that he was a student in Theology under Adam
Marsh in Oxford. A.G. Little suggested that Master Thomas Bacon, who in 1253
was recommended by Adam Marsh as a socius for Richard Rufus, may have been
a brother of Roger Bacon (“The Franciscan School at Oxford in the 13th Century,”
A.F.H., 19 (1926), 842.
16
JEREMIAH HACKETT
lest the University of Paris get him as a successor to Alexander of
Hales and John of Rupella.20
In any event, we do know that after 1247 he continued his scholarly
and scientific interests. He assembled a research team, paid for secret
books, sought out the friendship of the Wise (he visited great scholars),
and spent a considerable amount of money in these endeavors. Further,
we know that he used this money to send out requests over-seas and
throughout Europe for specimens of natural science, whether medical
cures or geological specimens or lens.
Some time ago I suggested that there is no straight line of influ­
ence from Robert Grosseteste to Roger Bacon. I argued that Bacon’s
attitude to causal determinism and especially to Astrology put him at
odds with the great hero of his life, namely, Robert Grosseteste, Bishop
of Lincoln.21 One major intermediary or new influence in Bacon’s
work is found in the De vetula of Richard Foumival, Canon of Amiens.
Foumival had the best collection of scientific and secret books in
Europe. And prior to his death ca. 1260 and the transfer of his
Library to the Sorbonne through the agency of the great opponent
of the Friars, Gerard of Abbeville, on his death in 1272, he carefully
guarded the sections of this library which had to do with Magic and
Experimental Science. It is not beyond normal expectation to think
that sometime between 1247 and 1256, Bacon must have been a
reader and visitor at this Library. There is clear evidence in the Opus
maius and elsewhere that Bacon is presenting a prose version of the
cosmography which is found in the De vetula, the poem (which is an
introduction to the philosophical life) by Richard of Foumival. Indeed,
Bacon in his Opus maius is the first major commentator on this poem.
Unless Bacon had access to this library prior to its transfer into the
hands of Gerard of Abbeville, it is doubtful that he could have gained
access to the many texts which he cites in his works after 1260.
We do not know where or in what province of the Franciscan
Order Bacon became a Friar Minor. But the evidence that he was
a Franciscan sometime around 1256 is clear. We do, however, know
that he entered the Order at the time of its greatest crisis over the
20 Jeremiah Hackett, “Scientia experimentalis: From Robert Grosseteste to Roger
Bacon,” art. cit., 98-102.
21 Jeremiah Hackett, art. cit., 113-16. See also Jeremiah Hackett, “Aristotle, Astrologia
and Controversy at the University of Paris (1266-74),” in John Van Engen and
Edward D. English, eds. Learning Institutionalized: Teaching in the Middle Ages, (Forth­
coming) [= Papers of the 1992 NEH Colloqium in Medieval Studies, University of
Notre Dame].
ROGER BACON: HIS LIFE, CAREER AND WORKS 17
issue of Poverty, with the split between the Franciscan spirituals and
the conventuals, and which was resolved temporally by the appoint­
ment of Bonaventure as the Master General in 1257.22 As a Franciscan,
Bacon remained studious, but he did not hold a public office as a
Teacher. Indeed, his superiors in the Order seem to have ordered
him to desist from some of his scientific and linguistic pursuits, prob­
ably because he had the normal duties of a friar: prayer, sermons,
collations, service to the poor. Finally, at the Council of Narbonne
in 1260, Bonaventure and the other superiors of the Order promul­
gated a statute forbidding Friars to publish any Books or Pamphlets
without the express permission of the superiors. This, as we will see
did deeply affect Bacon’s behavior.
We know that sometime in 1263-4, Bacon through the mediation
of Raymond of Laon, a cleric in the household of Cardinal Guy le
Gros de Foulques, Papal Legate to England during the Civil War,
made contact with the Cardinal. He seems to have spoken about his
educational writings where he proposed a complete reform of educa­
tion in the Christian West. The Cardinal had attempted to gain entry
to England in order to mediate the Civil War, but entry was refused.
Bacon, however, was affected by the War since his family, who were
on the King’s side, was reduced to poverty. One of the oddities about
Bacon’s own commitment is that his own very great advocates of
cultural, religious and scientific reform were the ones invoked by
Simon de Montfort as his advisors.23
Sometime in 1266, Bacon, through the offices of the English Ambas­
sador to the Papal Curia, William Bonecour, regained contact with
Cardinal De Foulques. Since early spring 1265, he (quite unexpectedly)
had become Pope Clement IV. In July 1266, Bacon received an
order (mandatum) from Pope Clement IV to write to him concern­
ing the topics of their conversation and to ignore the statutes of his
order to the contrary. This, however, placed Bacon in a difficulty.
He was able to tell his superiors that he was on a mission for the
Papacy, but since the Pope did not supply Bacon with research funds,
he had to beg, borrow and cajole his friends to get the parchment,
scribes and writing requirements. And all of it had to be done as
secretly as possible.
22 See Weisheipl, art. cit., 455.
23 See John Maddicot, Simon de Montfort, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994.
 18 JEREMIAH HACKETT
According to Bacon, the Pope had requested him to write concern­
ing the status of Philosophy within Theology. But much more was
involved. From various scattered remarks, it is clear that the Pope
wanted Bacon’s considered views on the whole academic situation at
the University of Paris, and in particular the wholescale warfare about
Aristode in the Arts Faculty as well as the in-fighting in the Theology
Faculty between the Friars and their opponents, the Secular Masters.
Part one of the Opus maius presents the reader with the core of
Bacon’s polemic. It can be summed up as follows: Aristode and
Astronomy/Astrology. But this is a rubric. What it is stating is that
the works of Aristode as interpreted by Avicenna and Averroes and
all the works of Arabic science then available in translation should
be studied by the Christian scholars at the University of Paris. One
can see that Bacon, like the author of the Speculum astronomiae, was
concerned the task of separating books in Magic from true works in
Science and Art.
Further, it is clear that Bacon is attempting to provide the Pope
with an interpretation of Aristotle which is more comprehensive than
that of the young Masters in Arts. In particular, while they seemed
willing to juxtapose Aristotle and Theology, with the obvious lack of
detailed resolution of conflicting propositions concerning: Creation,
Providence and the individuality of the intellect, Bacon wished to
show how Aristotle and Science (i.e. Astronomy plus the other sci­
ences) could be taken up and transcended in a new kind of Theo­
logy, one which took the sciences of Language, Nature and Morals
seriously. In Bacon’s view, however skilled the dialectics of the Arts
Masters, they were like the blind leading the blind even in the area
of natural science.
Whether or not the Masters of Arts held a Double-Truth theory
has received much discussion.24 In any event, it is clear that Bacon
personally believed that they did hold such a position, and that they
did so in a deceitful manner.25 If we read the later works of Roger
Bacon (1263-92) in the light of his attack on the so-called Latin Aver-
roists or Radical Aristotelians, rather than as a 19th century Scientist
24 Richard C. Dales, “The Origins of the Doctrine of the Double Truth,” Viator
15 (1984), 169-79.
25 Communia naturalium, Fasc. Ill, 286; See Jeremiah Hackett, “Aquinas, Roger
Bacon and the Problem of the Intellective Soul (anima intellectiva) 1266-77,” in
Jeremiah Hackett, ed. Aquinas on Mind and Intellect: New Essays, (New York: Dowling
ROGER BACON: HIS LIFE, CAREER AND WORKS 19
before his time, one will find the real scientific context for Bacon’s
writings. Sometime in 1267-8, Bacon sent the Opus maius (in four
sections) to the Pope through the agency of his student the “anony­
mous” Iohannes and a companion. He also sent related works such as
Opus minus, De multiplicatione specierum, and related works on alchemy
and possibly astrology to the Pope. Unfortunately, by November 26,
1268, Pope Clement IV had died. And there remained an inter­
regnum in the Papacy until 1271. Still, one cannot help but think
that the Pope would have passed on these works to his trusted aca­
demic advisors. Still, given the present state of Bacon’s texts, and this
despite the great labors of Cardinal Gasquet, A.G. Little, Fr. Delorme,
L. Withington and especially Robert Steele, it is extremely difficult
to be precise about the dating of all of Bacon’s works after 1260.
We know that the polemic entitled Compendium studii philosophiae was
written ca. 1271-2. Further, it is becoming more evident that Bacon’s
works from the 1260’s have a close connection with the issues lead­
ing up to the Parisian Condemnations of 1270 and 1277. According
to a report in the Chronicle of the Twenty-Four Generals, Roger Bacon
was formally condemned sometime between November, 1277 and
Pentecost, 1279 by Jerome of Ascoli, the Master-General of the
Franciscan Order “on account of certain suspected novelties.” And
because of these he was confined to prison (house-arrest). The doctrine
of Roger Bacon was forbidden in the Order and Papal approval
was sought.26
College Press, 1997), 15-44 [Papers from the 1993-4 SSIPS/SAGP Conference on
Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Binghamton University, SUNY].
26 Chronica X X IV Generalium Ordinis Minorum, in Analecta Franciscana, III, 360: Hie
Generalis frater Hieronymus de multorum fratrum consilio condemnavit et reprobavit
doctrinam Fratris Rogerii Bachonis Anglici, sacrae theologiae magistri, continens
aliquas novitates suspectas, propter quas fuit idem Rogerius carceri condemnatus,
praecipiendo omnibus fratribus ut nullus illam teneret, sed ipsam vitaret, ut per
Ordinem reprobatum. Super hoc etiam scripsit Domino Papae Nicolao praefato, ut
per eius auctoritatem doctrina ilia periculosa totaliter sopiretur.
Naturally, one wants to know which doctrine was dangerous. It is most likely to
have been the astrology, alchemy and sdentia experimentalis as used in Moralis Philoso-
phia, that part of Bacon’s thought which related closely to theology. Again, his pos­
sible links to the Spiritual Franciscans, and his intemperate attacks on almost every
scholar of the age, but especially against the Dominicans and against the “Seculares”
such as Gerard of Abbeville would have caused problems. But perhaps, the most
accurate answer is the one suggested long ago by Pierre Mandonnet: Bacon was
condemned within the Franciscan O rder as a consequence of the general Condem­
nation of Philosophy and the Sciences by the Bishop of Paris in 1277. After all,
these sciences included topics which touched on Magic and Occult science. See
Jeremiah Hackett, art. cit., 100-103.
 20 JEREMIAH HACKETT
In the light of recent research, it has now become apparent that
some time after 1278, Bacon returned from Paris to Oxford. It was
at the Franciscan House in Oxford that he completed his Edition of
the important Secretum secretorum,27
Bacon has been idolized and praised as the founder of Modern
Science. Hagiography of Science presents us with a man of 19th
century interests long before that time. This is the image which has
entered the scholarly and popular literature. And yet beginning with
Lynn Thorndike, Pierre Duhem, A.G. Litde, Robert Steele, Theodore
Crowley, F. Alessio, E. Bottom, and Stewart C. Easton, the romantic
image gave way to the more realistic portrait. More recently, through
the new works of critical edition and translation, a better sense of
the evidence is being won.
Bacon was a person of his time, a 13th century Scholastic philoso­
pher, a Medieval scientist, a savant of very great scope, the one who
taught Western Europe to think about light, force and species. And
in the context of Medieval Science, Religion, Philosophy and Magic,
he is a towering if neglected figure of great importance. Coming as
he does toward the end of the great Translation Movement (1140-
1280), he was in a position to absorb and take advantage of almost
everything which had been handed on from the ancient world in
Science, Religion, Philosophy and Magic.28
John North has pointed out that the three “greats” of medieval
theory of Perspective Bacon-Pecham-Witelo, developed the subject in
its basic outlines such that it would retain the structure given it by
these three great scholars until late Renaissance would open up new
vistas29 Bacon was the one who wrote the first synthesis of this mate­
rial. He is, therefore, a major influential figure in Medieval Science.
He is the one who set out a particular science, Perspective and used
it and its subordinate science, the scientia experimentalise as a Model for
27 Steven J. Williams, “Roger Bacon and His Edition of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum
secretorum,'1'1 Speculum 69 (1994), 57-73.
28 See recent works by Charles B. Burnett on Arabic-Latin translators in the
12th century.
29 John North, “Natural Philosophy in Late Medieval Oxford,” in J.I. Catto and
Ralph Evans, eds., Late Medieval Oxford (The History of The University of Oxford, ed. cit.
Vol. II), 96: To appreciate the full measure of Bacon’s influence we must turn to
the sixteenth century and the printing of works by those whom he direcdy influ­
enced, Pecham and Witelo in particular. They, with Alhazen and Maurolico, were
subsequendy used by Kepler and possibly by Descartes at the outset of the next
crucial phase in the subject’s evolution.
ROGER BACON! HIS LIFE, CAREER AND WORKS 21
a new kind of thinking about nature. That Bacon himself in the
1260’s did not do much humanistic research and scientific experi­
mentation is simply due to the sociological and historical conditions
of his life at that time. He acknowledges this explicitly in Opus
maius, part six. He would not be the first or last humanist and sci­
entist who, due to political correctness of one kind or another, had
their research cut and their long term vision of reform curtailed.
Yet, despite wars, upheavals, narrowmindedness, and the general
change of things, Bacon’s works did survive, and they did have some
influence in the Renaissance and in the early modern period. But
that is another story.
B. Bacon’s Works: Brief Introduction
Here, it is important to gain some sense of Bacon’s academic work
as witnessed by his remaining authentic writings. As will become
apparent later in the volume, there is considerable disagreement con­
cerning the authenticity of Bacon’s works. For most of the items in
the Steele edition, especially those works which Bacon scholars have
dated to the 1240’s, we rely on one single MS: MS Amiens 406.
These works are generally held to be authentic reportationes of Bacon’s
lectures on Aristotelians and Neo-platonic texts in the Arts Faculty
at the University of Paris in the 1240’s. There is one major problem
concerning these texts which has not been confronted by the scholar­
ship. These lectures on Aristotelian and Neoplatonic texts are very
sophisticated, indeed, more complex than one would expect from an
Arts Master in the 1240’s.30 Each of these works needs to be studied
carefully and critically re-edited.
As we have seen above, beginning in 1264, Bacon set about writ­
ing his new works on scientific topics, but was unable to do so due
to the prohibitions of the Council of Narbonne in 1260. He made
an “end-run” around these restrictions by appealing to the academic
interests of Cardinal De Foulques. The order by Pope Clement IV
30 Once in a conversation, Fr. Allan B. Wolter, O.F.M. suggested to me that this
whole issue of the authenticity of the Parisian Quaestiones needs to be re-examined.
He expressed doubt that some of the items in the Steele edition of these Quaestiones
were works by Bacon. A first step in this direction will be made in a forthcoming
issue of Vivarium, 1997.
 22 JEREMIAH HACKETT ROGER BACON! HIS LIFE, CAREER AND WORKS 23

to Roger Bacon in 1266 to send his works immediately found the Opus maius needs a full critical edition, as do the related works. At
Friar unprepared and in a difficult circumstance. Nevertheless, be­ present, there is a critical edition only for parts five, seven and the
tween July 1266 and sometime in 1268, Bacon managed to send the De signis section of part three. It will therefore be some time before
Opus maius, Opus minus, De multiplicatione specierum, some works on the scholarly public will be able to have available a complete edition
astrology and alchemy, possibly the De speculum comburentibus to the of all the Bacon corpus such as is now available for the critical study
Pope. There is considerable controversy as to whether or not he sent of William of Ockham.
the Opus tertium. This is an issue whose resolution will await a new
critical edition of this text.31 Bacon wrote the notoriously polemical
piece, Compendium studii philosophiae in 1271-2. The dating of the
Communia naturalium is very problematic. Part one seems to have
begun in the early 1260’s, but later sections such as Book One, parts
3 and 4 as well as Book Two, seems to have been written after
1268, and may have been written in stages between 1268 and 1274.32
It has become apparent in recent scholarship that Roger Bacon
began his edition of the Secretum secretorum in Paris during the 1260’s
and that sometime after 1278 when he returned to the Franciscan
house of studies in Oxford, he completed his edition.33 The Compen­
dium studii theologiae must, on the basis of internal evidence, have been
completed at Oxford in the 1290’s. However, the reader will note
that apart from these specific references to forty years earlier in the
case of Richard Rufus, and other such dates, the text and content is
quite similar to that found in the Opus maius from the 1260’s. Per­
haps, Bacon or an assistant simply re-edited old material.
For an overview of the state of these works, the reader is advised
to look at the studies of modern Bacon scholars. However, it is now
the task of Bacon scholarship to look at the MSS tradition of each
of work inorder to set about making truly critical estimates of the
authenticity of each text. That this is an absolute requirement has
been shown recently by the proof by A. Paravicini-Bagliani that some
of the writings on medicine Steele edition (Vol. IX, ed. Withington
and Little) are not authentic works of Roger Bacon.34 Further, the

31 Professor George Molland is preparing a critical edition of this text.

32 See Jeremiah Hackett, “Aquinas, Roger Bacon and Latin Averroism: The Prob­
lem of the Intellective Soul (Anima intellectiva) 1266-77,” in Jeremiah Hackett, ed.
Aquinas on Mind and Intellect: New Essays, (New York: Dowling College Press, 1997),
15-44. Jeremiah Hackett is preparing a new text and english translation of the Com­
munia naturalium.
33 See Steven J. Williams below.
34 A. Paravicini-Bagliani, “II mito della prolongatione vitae e la corte pontifica del
Ducento: il De retardatione senectutis,” in his Medicina e science della natura alia corte dei
papi nel Ducento (Spoleto, 1991), 281-326.
 2. ROGER BACON’S ATTITUDE TOWARD TH E LATIN
TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS OF THE
TWELFTH AND TH IRTEENTH CENTURIES

Richard Lemay

Roger Bacon’s testimony regarding the role of Latin translations in

the formation of scholastic thought was long taken at its face value
as coming from a contemporary witness. For it was presumed to
mirror through personal experience the historical process by which
Aristotle’s philosophy emerged as the backbone of Latin scholasti­
cism. Closer scrutiny of his assertions on the subject, however, inclined
some historians more recently to question the accuracy of Bacon’s
testimony and even to charge him with gross ignorance or disregard
of the realities of the case. In 1923 L. Thorndike reviewed in extenso
Bacon’s statements on the subject of translations and translators in
his times and found them to be marred by innumerous errors of
fact, insufficient information and often extremely partisan judgments.1
Shortly afterwards a thoroughgoing study by S.D. Wingate2 of the
Latin translations of Aristotelian scientific works during the Middle
Ages amply documented the deficiencies in Bacon’s testimony already
pointed to by Thorndike.
In the more than sixty years since, Bacon’s peculiar conceptions of
nature and of experimental science have continued to attract attention,
yet without the finger ever being laid on the probable cause of Bacon’s
vagaries on the subject of translations and translators. This predica­
ment of scholarship appears to be due in the first place to a prevalent
trend which is satisfied with reading all too casually the significant
documents and related cultural context signaling the emergence of
Aristotelian science and philosophy in European thought from the

1 Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Vol. II (1923) Ch. LXI
pp. 616-691, especially 630-649. Cf. Ibid., pp. 312-313.—Thorndike had sounded
a first alarm in 1914, “Roger Bacon and Experimental Method in the Middle Ages”.
Philosophical Review. XXIII 271-298. For an account on this topic since Thorndike,
see Jeremiah Hackett below.
2 S.D. Wingate, The Medieval Latin Versions of the Aristotelian Scientific Corpus, with
Special Reference to the Biological Works, London 1931. [Repr. Reprint Library. Iowa.],
Ch. V, pp. 112-119 and passim, see Index s.v. Bacon.
 26 RICHARD LEMAY
beginning of the twelfth century. In our view the case hinges around
a saner perception of the events at the University of Paris in 1210-
1215 which saw the condemnation and proscription of books propa­
gating the metaphysics and natural science of Aristotle, the so-called
libri naturaks in medieval parlance. And here Bacon’s testimony is
both instructive, for his experience was acquired under the drastic
effects of these condemnations, and at the same time misleading
because of Bacon’s heavy bias which made him ignore some central
features of the culture of his milieu.
We must first recall the main features of Bacon’s account of the
emergence of aristotelian studies in the Paris of his student and teach­
ing days (1230-1250), and hence his understanding of the impact of
the prohibitions of the libri naturaks at Paris in his own times.
1. Bacon’s Account of the Arrival of Aristoklian Science
at Paris in his own Times
We may reserve for later examination his intemperate denunciations
of the Latin translations, despite the fact that the latter were so instru­
mental in giving the fresh impetus to aristotelian studies recorded
by him.
The spade work done by Thorndike and Wingate in pointing the
inadequacies of Bacon’s judgment on the historic movement of aristote-
lianism in thirteenth century scholasticism will dispense us from retell­
ing the story from scratch. We need only stress a couple of distinctive
features of Bacon’s opinions bearing on our present thesis, namely
the limited time period covered in his testimony on the one hand,
and secondly his stress on the disastrous and widespread effects of
the Parisian condemnations which according to him stifled the study
of science and philosophy for so long among students and teachers
at Paris.
On the first point, namely the short time period assumed in his
statements, it is remarkable that Bacon seems to be very poorly
informed beyond the forty years preceding his specific utterings on
the subject in the Opus Maius (ca. 1266) and in the Compendium Studii
philosophise (1270/1271). Whenever he has an opportunity to refer to
the fate of the libri naturaks at Paris up to his own times, Bacon
invariably asserts that books dealing with “metaphysics and natural
science” were long condemned and proscribed at Paris before his
LATIN TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS 27
time. The assertion is repeated often enough but most clearly with
respect to Alexander of Hales, who taught theology at Paris in the
first decades of the thirteenth century and who is charged by Bacon
with abject ignorance of metaphysics and natural science which by
now [i.e. ca. 1270] constitutes the pride of the University [underlin­
ing is ours for later discussion]:
He [Alexander] did not teach nor study the natural sciences and meta­
physics because the “principal works” for these sciences or their commen­
taries had not yet been translated when he taught in the Faculty of Arts.
These works were condemned [excommunicati] and banned [suspensi]
for a long time afterwards in Paris where he received his education.
And he entered the [Franciscan] Order before the time these books
began to be read. This is obvious since his joining the Order coincided
with the “dispersion” of the University of Paris (masters and students
strike of 1229-1231). For during his time and till the end of the strike at
the University these books were proscribed. Indeed Alexander was already
an elderly man and had been a magister in Theology when he joined
the Order. To sum up: this man knew nothing of the sciences now
commonly studied [“nunc vulgatas”], namely natural philosophy and
metaphysics which are presently the pride of the studium.3
This first hand testimony illustrates a situation which Bacon knew at
close range since Alexander of Hales, a celebrated “secular”4 teacher
of theology at Paris before the crisis of 1229-1231, subsequently
entered the Franciscan Order to which Bacon himself belonged when
writing these lines. Yet Bacon’s testimony is befuddled by a certain
animus5 and requires sober interpretation. His main points however
hold true and are corroborated by several contemporary witnesses,6
3 “Non legit naturalia nec metaphysica nec audivit ea quia non fuerunt libri
principales harum scientiarum nec co m m en tan i translate quando rexit in artibus.
Et diu postea Juerunt excommunicati et suspensi Parisius ubi ipse studuit. Unde citius ordinem
intravit antequam fuerint hi libri semel perlecti. Istud notum est per eius ingressum
in ordinem et per dispersionem Universitatis Parisiensis; nam usque ad eum fuerunt
libri prohibiti et usquequo rediit Universitas, post quem reditum ipse intravit religionem
jam senex et magister in theologia. Unde et breviter dicam: ipse ignoravit has scientias
nunc vulgatas, scilicet naturalem philosophiam et metaphysicam in quibus est tota
gloria studii modemorum”. Opus minus Ed. Brewer 1859, p. 326.
4 That is, a secular cleric though not yet belonging to a religious order.
5 He wishes to combat the tendency in franciscan studia to rely blindly on the
Summa Jratris Alexandri which he claims was falsely ascribed to Alexander of Hales
and further lacks the foundation of science.
6 Rigord’s chronicle, documents concerning the University of Paris in the Chartu-
larium, Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus miraculorum etc.
 28 RICHARD LEMAY
namely that the major books (“libri principales” in Bacon’s judgment,
that is “textus” or authoritative sources) of natural science and of
metaphysics and commentaries thereon were prohibited during the
teaching career of Alexander of Hales which spanned the early decades
of the thirteenth century at the University of Paris.
Yet in his testimony about the situation of the libri naturaks in
Paris at the time of Hales’ training and teaching, and therefore bear­
ing on the fate of translations of scientific works in thirteenth cen­
tury Paris, Bacon evidences an astounding degree of ignorance with
respect to capital factors in the case. In one instance7 he makes the
beginning of the study of Aristotle in Paris coincide with the arrival
of Michael Scot ca. 1230 with his translations of many of Aristotle’s
works. Wingate has no trouble pointing to the exaggeration, even
falsehood of Bacon’s assertion, as did Thorndike but with some feeble
attempt at justification.8 In addition, Bacon’s choice of time sequence
for the emergence of aristotelian studies in Paris brings the case back
to no further than the early thirties of the thirteenth century. In
accordance with this somewhat arbitrary chronology, which is con­
tradicted by the actual facts as we know them, Bacon declares that
previous to the forty years since the revigoration supposedly gene­
rated by Michael Scot’s arrival, the study of metaphysics and of
natural science were proscribed for a long time at Paris under threat
of most severe sanctions:
Scimus enim quod temporibus nostris Parisius diu fuit contradictum
naturali philosophiae et metaphysicae Aristotelis per Avicennam et
Averroym expositis, et ob densam ignorantiam fuerunt libri eorum
excommunicati et utentes eis per tempora satis longa.9
As in the earlier passage respecting Alexander of Hales, Bacon is no
doubt referring to the condemnation of Aristotle’s natural science
and of its Arabian commentators issued by an ecclesiastical coun­
cil at Paris in 1210, reissued and made more specific in 1215 by
Cardinal Robert de Cour^on acting as papal legate to reorganize
7 Opus Maim. Pars II, cap. XIII, quoted by Wingate p. 116.—C f also L. Thorndike,
Michael Scot. p. 27.
8 L. Thorndike, op. cit. p. 27 considers the possibility that Bacon’s assertion meant
primarily that having brought with him his new translations of Aristotle’s works,
Michael may have made it possible for Parisian scholars to circumvent the condem­
nations of the older translations.
9 Opus Maim. Pars la, cap. X. Bridges p. 21.
LATIN TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS 29
the curriculum at Paris after the turmoil,10 which condemnations were
renewed up to the formal admission of Aristotle into the Arts cur­
riculum in 1255.
Throughout his statements on the rise of aristotelian studies at
Paris, and incidentally on the fate of translations which had made it
happen, Bacon seemed to envisage no other time perspective than
the period of forty years (1230-70) of free flight, preceded by a long
one (1210 to 1230) of abject igorance of natural science forcibly
imposed by the condemnation of the libri naturaks in 1210/1215. The
inaccuracies in Bacon’s dating of events and the notable gaps in his
information were sufficiently documented by Thorndike and Wingate
so as to render superfluous belaboring of the charges. Yet while these
critics seem timid or embarassed, there may exist more fundamental
factors behind the shortcomings in Bacon’s assertions. For if we realize,
as we must, that the 1210 condemnations included in their broad,
indiscriminate sweep nearly all writings on natural science made
available to European scholars in translation from the Arabic since
the early twelfth century, the fuzziness in Bacon’s information may
then be seen as one patent example of the blight these condemna­
tions, cast upon the memory of scholars a generation later concerning
the history and role of these translations. Bacon’s surprising igno­
rance of the facts is but a mirror of such damage.
2. The Parisian Decrees of 1210/1215 and the libri naturales
To be true, in order to assess the veracity or limitations in Bacon’s
assertions we must fit them into the larger context of the fate of the
so-called libri naturaks in the schools of his time. In view of the impasse
reached in this direction by modern scholarship, there has long sub­
sisted a need to re-appraise the significance and long lasting impact
of the condemnation and proscription of Aristotle’s “metaphysics”
and natural science and its “commentators” in the Parisian decrees
of 1210-15. We therefore beg to offer here a fresh approach to the
situation from the perspective of a broader canvas than one concerned
with the fate of Aristotle’s writings exclusively as has been the tradition
10 All pertinent documents will easily be found in Denifle-Chatelain’s Chartularium
Universitatis Parisiensis. I pp. 70-79 (for the period 1210/15), and pp. 129-139 (for
1230/31).
 30 RICHARD LEMAY
heretofore. It may provide a fairer understanding of Bacon’s vagaries
concerning the role of translations and translators in medieval latin
aristotelianism.
Aristotelianism indeed stood in the forefront of the commotion
aroused among parisian scholars by the condemnation and proscrip­
tion of books of natural science, assorted with severe sanctions threat­
ened against its transgressors. It was so perceived by Bacon many
decades later when he was testifying to the damaging effects of these
condemnations on studies of natural science among his contempo­
raries. Indeed, the status of the libri naturales, not only those of Aristotle
but in general all books dealing with natural science based on aris-
totelian doctrines, appears to have been the underlying, festering issue
in the scholastic world during the first half of the thirteenth century.
O n the other hand, their connection with Arab learning had been
made explicit by the addition of “commenta” in 1210, but “summe”
in Robert de Courgon’s regulations of 1215. Surely no “classical”
(greek) commentaries could have been intended for they were utterly
unknown among Latins at that time. Whereas the term “summa”,
already used by Arab authors in the form of “jam a'a” (collectio),
and translated “summa” by John of Seville in the Great Conjunctions of
Abu M acshar, stood for a “gathering of basic doctrines” in any dis­
cipline. The shift from “commenta” to “summe” would indicate closer
approximation to reality tendered to Robert de Courgon by the “boni
viri” whom he said he had consulted on this point. Hence the numer­
ous Arabian “introductions” to the science of the stars such as Abu
M a'shar’s, Alchabitius’, Zael’s (Sahl ben Bishr), Masha’allah’s among
others most aptly fit the category of works of natural science and
metaphysics designated under the terms of “commenta” or “summe”
in the decrees of 1210/15.11 Surely neither the classical greek commen­
tators of Aristotle could have been signalled by the theologians of 1210
in Paris, nor even the commentaries by Averroes on Aristotelian genu­
ine works because absolutely none were known or translated by 1210.
We have been striving for some decades now12 to show that the
libri naturales in question did not at first include directly the basic
11 An unmistakable sign of this appears from Albertus Magnus’ Speculum astronomiae
in which absolutely all books of natural science there reviewed and on which judgment
is passed are translations from the Arabic. As we shall soon demonstrate, Albertus’
exhaustive bibliographical review and sanction of the libri naturales provided forty
years later the actual solution to the crisis created by the parisian decrees of 1210.
12 Since Tokyo 1974 and henceforth, See note below.
LATIN TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS 31
works of Aristotle proper such as the Metaphysics or the Physics. The
decree of 1210 mentions only “natural science of Aristotle” without
specifying any work in particular.13 Robert de Courgon, however,
cites the Metaphysics by name among the prohibited books of Aristotle,
and its inclusion is explicitly assumed by Bacon speaking of these
interdictions. Such an extension is easily explained by calling to mind
the testimony of William Brito in his continuation of Rigord’s royal
Chronicle (ca. 1220). Indeed, writing about the proscriptions of 1210
in Paris, William tells of books of Aristotle recently imported from
Constantinople (conquered by the Latin Crusaders in 1204) and trans­
lated from Greek into Latin, which “taught metaphysics” and which
were condemned at Paris because their “subtle doctrines” seemed to
lend support to heresies, present ones and others that may arise in
the future.14
In his slightly confused testimony William Brito may hold the
solution of most ambiguities concerning the nature of the condemna­
tions of Aristotelian writings in Paris in 1210. William does not seem
to be much informed about the Metaphysics of Aristotle proper, but he
knew, apparently from hearsay, that in Paris, scholars were reading
boo^s “purported to have been written by Aristotle” and “teaching
metaphysics” which had been brought recently from Constantinople
and translated from Greek into Latin, and that these books were
deemed to supply water to the mill of heretics, present and possibly
future ones. On account of which they were ordered to be burned,
and explicit injunction was issued forbidding their reproduction or
even possession in the future.
From this we may conclude that some knowledge of the doctrines
of Aristotle’s natural science was already diffused among Latin scholars,
evidently not from the books recently brought from Constantinople,
13 M. Grabmann doubted that the theologians who drafted the decree of 1210
would have been sufficiendy informed to go that far in identifying any work in
particular on natural science by Aristotle.
14 “In diebus illis legebantur Parisius libelli quidam ab Aristotele, ut dicebantur
compositi qui docebant metaphysicam, delati de novo a Constantinopoli et a Graeco
in Latinum translati, qui quoniam non solum praedicte heres sententiis subtilibus
occasionem praebebant, imo et aliis nondum inventis praebere poterant, iussi sunt
omnes comburi et sub poena excommunicationis cautum est in eodem concilio ne quis
eos de caetero scribere aut legere praesumeret, vel quocumque modo habere”. Recueil
des Historiens des Gaules et de la France. XVII p. 84. Quoted by Du Boulay [Bulaeus]
Historia Universitatis Parisiensis III 1666 (Repr. 1966) p. 51, who borrows quotation
from De Launoy, De Varia Aristotelis in Academia Pansiensi Fortuna. Parisiis 1662. cap. 1.
Reproduced by A. Jourdain. Recherches critiques. .. (1843) p. 187.
32 RICHARD LEMAY
but by means of astrological works translated from the Arabic. Now
the use of genuine books of Aristotle recendy translated from the
Greek and which “taught Metaphysics” revealed the unmistakable
connection between the “theology/metaphysics” embodied in Ara­
bian astrology as Hermann of Carinthia had explained ca. 1150 on
the one hand, and Aristotle’s natural science expressed in the Meta­
physics on the other. It was probably this abrupt revelation dawning
on the parisian theologians shortly after the arrival and translation of
the Metaphysics, which suggested to them the danger to orthodoxy
hidden in Aristotle’s metaphysics and natural science. Before the turn
of the century, Alanus de Insulis, a theologian teaching in Paris, had
already considered Abu Ma'shar as the new auctoritas in “scientific”
astrology. It is no less true that modern scholarship has ever been
hard put to trace any substantial case of a latin translation of any
writing of Aristotle on metaphysics or natural science which would
fit the uproar at Paris in 1210.
With respect to the broad category of Aristotle’s libri naturales aimed
at in the said decrees Bacon’s statement rings more or less true, namely
that their principal texts in these sciences had not yet been trans­
lated at the time of Alexander of Hales’ education and teaching in
Paris. We have seen that Averroes’ commentaries, which at the time
of Bacon’s writing had become so instrumental in the domination of
latin aristotelianism by the averroistic brand, could not have been
involved in 1210. As for Avicenna’s paraphrases of Aristotle’s Meta­
physics, they had been available in Latin for nearly a century since
the translation by the team John of Seville/Gundissalinus ca. 1145.
And we know from the writings of William of Auvergne,—teacher of
theology then and later bishop of Paris (1228-1249)—that Avicenna’s
commentaries were attentively read before 1230. The confusion in
Bacon’s report about these realities appears therefore to be attribut­
able more to ignorance than to bias. Indeed, the meaning of the
term “metaphysics” as designating the science of ultimate causes of
motion and of being in the cosmos could be gathered from Hermann
of Carinthia’s preface to his translation of the Almagest (ca. 1150) in
which he explained the etymology of the term metaphysics from the
Greek as equating theology.15 This nearly unnoticed statement by
15 “.. . dehinc vero robore hoc [previous stages of trivium and quadrivium] animati
in theologica exercitate mentis aciem fiducialiter intendebant. Unde et ab ordine docendi
et discendi theologiani metaphysicam nominabant”. Cf. R. Lemay, “De la scolastique a
LATIN TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS 33
Hermann fully suffices to explain how in the minds of the parisian
theologians of 1210 works of Arab science, especially of astrology,
available in translations since the first half of the twelfth century did
appear to teach the metaphysics of Aristotle and hence were deemed
dangerous to orthodoxy, without need of any direct knowledge of
Aristotle’s original writings.
The “dispersion” alluded to in Bacon’s report is undoubtedly the
strike by Masters and Students in 1229-1231 which was finally re­
solved only after Pope Gregory IX issued the Bull “Parens Scientiarum”
usually considered as the formal act of creation of the University at
Paris. A major grievance of the striking masters and students was the
intolerable situation16 created by the 1210 prohibitions of the libri
naturales which obviously in Bacon’s view included “metaphysics
and natural science” in general, and not the books of Aristotle only.
Coupled with his statement that genuine interest in aristotelianism
arose among scholars at Paris around 1230 with the arrival of Michael
Scot bringing his translations of Aristotle, Bacon’s truncated account
of the historical stages of the rise of aristotelianism in scholasticism
seems more like a rehash of gossip held in fashion forty years before.
There is no doubt that the arrival of Michael Scot at Paris touting
Aristotle’s natural science would have attracted the keenest of interest.
After all Scot was known as the astrologer and familiar of Emperor
Frederick II, himself an ardent promoter of aristotelian studies despite
active Church resistance, and a brazen opponent of Popes Gregory IV
and Innocent IV on this score. The famous letter dispatched about
that time by the Emperor to the University of Bologna17—and later
to the University of Paris by his son Manfred18—strongly advocating
the study of Aristotle’s natural science in the Universities reflects the
mentality prevailing at Frederick II’s court.19 As Frederick showed
l’histoire . . in La diffusione delle science islamiche.. . Roma. Accademia Nazionale dei
Lincei 1987, p. 438 and note 57, p. 458.
16 This issue is brought into sharp focus in the propaganda letter issued by John
of Garland ca. 1229 aiming to attract the distraught students of Paris to the new
University at Toulouse where the books prohibited at Paris could be read without
fear of sanctions. Such propaganda would not have held the slightest attraction had
not the critical situation in Paris been felt “intolerable”.
17 Huillard-Breholles. Historia diplomatica Friderici Secundi. . . IV, 1 p. 383: “Encyclica
Friderici Romanorum imperatoris qua magistris in philosophia docentibus libros
quosdam sermoniales et mathematicos, ab Anstotele aliisque philosophis sub graecis
et arabicis vocabulis conscriptos, nunc in latinum ipso curante translatos, mittit”.
18 Martene et Durant. Amplissima collectio iudiciorum. II col. 1220.
19 Despite some errors in dates or attribution, Antonio De Stefano’s La outturn alia
 34 RICHARD LEMAY
himself so determined and active in sponsoring aristotelian studies in
the Universities at that time, one wonders whether Michael Scot’s
appearance in Paris in 1230 was not an element of Frederick’s cam­
paign in favor of aristotelian studies. Michael Scot joined Frederick’s
court in 1227, and in 1228—1229 he may have accompanied the
excommunicated emperor on his Crusade to Jerusalem.20 At his death
in Germany in 1236 Michael had returned to the court sometime
before. Hence the suggestion that his short trip and stay in Paris
ca. 1230 may have been part of the Emperor’s counter-propaganda
to compete with the Papacy (Gregory IX) in re-orienting the study
of natural science and of aristotelianism in the medieval Univer­
sities. On the other hand, in his stressing Michael Scot’s allegedly
capital role in enhancing aristotelian studies in Paris since 1230, Bacon
may have yielded to some bias toward a Scottish savant who had
ostentatiously become the “brain” of the imperial intelligentsia on
the one hand, and who in his writings provided considerable support
to “occult”, “magical”, or “experimental” science cherished by Bacon.
At any rate the papal struggle against the emperor’s aristotelian cru­
sade, twice heightened by excommunication of the Emperor appears
to have been at the core of papal policy to maintain its supremacy
in Christendom under the two successive Popes: Gregory IX (1227—
41) and Innocent IV (1243-54). Hence the importance of the Bull
“Parens Scientiarum” actually making the University of Paris the
standard-bearer of orthodox culture, against Frederick’s ambition to
raise Bologna (or Naples) to the status of leading (lay) cultural insti­
tution of medieval society.
Wingate’s recital21 of the limitations in Roger Bacon’s testimony
about Latin translations of scientific works from Greek and Arabic
seems quite plausible, corroborating as it does Thorndike’s severe
earlier indictments. Her own description of the fate of aristotelian
works in Paris ca. 1230, however is quite implausible in face of the
situation revealed by contemporary documents rightly interpreted.
Wingate states:
cork di Federico II Inperatore provides a substantial conspectus of the intellectual activi­
ties at the imperial Court in the first half of the thirteenth century.
20 L. Thorndike, Michael Scot, 1963, pp. 34ff.—A. de Stefano, La cultura alia cork
di Federico I I Imperatore, pp. 35ff.
21 S.D. Wingate, op. cit. ch. V, pp. 112-119.
LATIN TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS 35
Nor did the prohibitions (1210-1215) long remained effective in Paris.
In 1231, Pope Gregory IX appointed a commission consisting of William
of Auxerre, Stephen of Provins . . . and a third member,22 with the
object of revising the Aristotelian corpus prior to the lifting of the ban.
This body seems to have succeeded, after the manner of commissions,
in burying the whole matter in a decent obscurity. Nothing more is
heard of the revised edition of Aristotle, (op. cit. p. 19).
The situation imagined by Wingate in the first portion of our quota­
tion is in flat contradiction with the opinion of a contemporary like
Bacon who stated that for his entire teaching career, the renowned
Parisian teacher of the first half of the thirteenth century Alexander
of Hales could not read these books because they had remained
proscribed all along. If it were true that the prohibitions of 1210 did
not long remain effective, one wonders why should Gregory IX bother
on the one hand to provide in 1231 for the absolution of contraven-
ers, and on the other to establish a commission to “expurgate” the
said condemned books? As regards the work of the “expurgation
commission”, Wingate could have easily ascertained that it probably
never met: Simon of Authie (de Alteis) died the same year, and
Stephen of Provins probably shortly after,23 while the third member,
William of Beauvais seems to have been nominated to a benefice in
a farther place. The obscurity seems rather to lie in Wingate’s infor­
mation. The quip in the last portion of our quotation from Wingate
is unavailing, for as we shall now indicate, Pope Innocent IV in
1245 used exactly the same words as did Gregory IX in extending
the proscription of the libri naturales to the University of Toulouse.
The tenor of Innocent’s order reveals that the “expurgation” had
not as yet taken place as late as 1245, though promise for its imple­
mentation was again uttered.
Wingate further comments:
By 1234 we have definite [our underline] evidence in the writing of
Johannes of Garlandia, Philip of Greve and others that the Aristotelian
writings were freely studied in the schools of Paris, and it was not long
before they were prescribed by the faculties as subjects of examination.24
22 Simon of Authie by name, cf. Chartularium. I. p. 143, doc. 87.
23 Cf. Chartularium U.P. ibid., notes 1 and 2.
24 Wingate’s evidence is Grabmann 1911 and 1916. Grabmann came again later
on the subject with improved information and notably altered judgment: 1936
Mitklalterliches Geisksleben. II. pp. 183ff., and 1941 and 1946 I Papi del duecento e
I’aristoklismo.
 36 RICHARD LEMAY
Far from testifying that the Aristotelian writings were freely studied
in the schools of Paris, John of Garland’s letter on the contrary makes
it clear that the 1210 prohibitions, renewed by Pope Gregory in 1231,
were still being enforced at Paris, a fact which allowed him to stress
the advantage of coming to Toulouse where the proscribed books
could be read without fear of sanction. Wingate does not provide
further support for her “definite evidence”, while her sole reference
to the “free study of Aristotle” is a statute of 1254 at the University.
It must be stressed that, contrary to a common assumption that the
Church authorities showed some laxity on this point, the proscrip­
tion of the libri naturales from the curricula at the University of Paris
was explicitly maintained at least until about the time of the Council
of Lyon in 1245, for within two months (September 22, 1245) after
the session of the Council (June 28-July 17) Pope Innocent IV
extended to the University of Toulouse the proscriptions edicted at
Paris in 1210.25*It must be clearly understood then that down to the
statutes of the Arts at the University in 1254, the proscriptions of
1210 held sway at all time, although with varying conditions of severity
which can easily be ascertained through the relevant documents of
the University of Paris.
Finally, the confirmed presence of Albertus Magnus in Paris dur­
ing the Council of 1245, added to the revelation by the Franciscan
Bonaventure de Iseo that Albertus had received direct permission
from the Pope to read the books of good and evil and to pass judg­
ment on their acceptability (a mission resulting in the production of
the celebrated Speculum Astronomic), a task which Bonaventure asserts
Albert did merge with his on-going enterprise of commenting all the
works of Aristotle, all these converging circumstances make it obvi­
ous that this was the moment when the effective solution to the 1210
ban on aristotelian works in natural science was found at last in
Albertus Magnus’ Speculum astronomic.
For one, and most importantly perhaps in view of their inhibiting
effect, the severe sanctions attached to the said decrees could even­
tually be attenuated by way of easy absolution obtainable from two
25 It is striking that Innocent IV uses exactly the same terms as did Gregory IX
in renewing the proscription: . . libris illis naturalibus qui in Concilio provinciali
ex certa causa prohibiti fuere non utantur om nino T olose quousque examinati
fuerint et ab omni errore purgati”. L. Saltet. L ’ancienne Universite de Toulouse 1912.—
Gregory IX had said “Parisiis non utantur”; this the only difference between the
two pronouncements.
LATIN TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS 37
parisian clerics especially empowered for this. Another form of relief
lay in the prospect of the proposed “expurgating commission” on
which a notable aristotelian like Stephen of Provins was to sit (Michael
Scot dedicated to him his translation of the De Cclo). It must also
have contributed materially to assuage the frustration of the parisian
scholars. For by 1230, some twenty years after the decrees, a saner
view of the relation of aristotelian natural science and metaphysics to
the use made of them by the Arabian astrologers must have become
common place. This view can be sustained from the discreet and
certainly non-obtrusive confession by eminent “aristotelians” such as
William of Auvergne and Albertus Magnus himself. For both state
rather incidentally that they did read the said works “in their youth”,
presumably wanting to convey the impression that it was before the
prohibitions were issued in 1210. Thus it can be concluded that the
prohibitions and sanctions of 1210 ceased in some fashion to be a
major hindrance shortly after 1230. And here Bacon’s testimony gets
closer to the facts. The end however did not come by virtue of any
formal decision of ecclesiastical authorities. Indeed, in accordance with
the sequence of events at the University and in the schools at large,
it appears that it was the completion of his Speculum Astronomic by
Albertus Magnus which at last opened the gates for an unrestricted
study of and comments on Aristotle’s natural philosophy and meta­
physics which we observe at Paris after 1250.
3. Bacon’s Critique of Translations and of Translators
As it is well known, Bacon’s opinion on the worth of translations
and on the merits of individual translators who had produced the
crop of foreign texts as manna for high scholasticism is persistently
negative. He went as far as considering their use by the young gen­
eration of teachers, especially members of the Orders, to lead to
abomination and desolation of true learning. This historical reality
has been effectively demonstrated and amply documented in recent
studies thanks to an approach definitely more sober than the enthu­
siastic but blind admiration adopted by his editors in the nineteenth
and early twentieth century (Brewer, Little, Steele among others).
We need not retell the story in all its details, for scholarship has now
made it plain that like his information about the origin of aristo-
telianism in Paris in the 1230, Bacon’s knowledge of and judgment
 38 RICHARD LEMAY
on the translations feeding scholastic thought were very defective, or
worse, negative out of personal irritation or envy. His own claim to
a knowledge of “languages of the science” as he labels them is clearly
exaggerated in view of the demonstrations he supplies at length in
the Compendium Studii Philosophiae for instance. As compared to the
direct and detailed knowledge of translations of scientific works from
the Arabic displayed by Albertus Magnus in the Speculum Astronomiae,
Bacon’s strictures on the value of translations seem mean and largely
unavailing. We shall not tarry too long on this aspect of Bacon’s
attitude toward translations, only summarizing a few interesting points
in his utterances, such as his lame recapitulation of the story of trans­
lations since Gerard of Cremona (1114-1187), his sharp but shallow
criticism of his contemporaries Hermann the German and William
of Moerbeke, and above all his incorrect account of Robert Grosseteste
attitude toward translations and the Latin form they produced of
Aristotle’s writings. Most important however in this review will be
an enquiry into Bacon’s reasons for his staunch hostility toward
Albertus Magnus.
1. Bacon’s apparent neglect of the massive movement of transla­
tions of scientific works from the Arabic since the beginning of the
twelfth century cannot but be astonishing, especially on the part of
one who made such uninhibited use of them. He nearly incorpo­
rated the work of Gerard of Cremona into the contemporary scene,
he decidedly confused Hermann of Carinthia (whose translation of
Abu Ma'shar he freely used; all manuscripts of this version mention
Hermann as translator) with Hermann the German with whom Bacon
held direct conversations etc.26 No inkling about the importance of
translations done in the twelfth century, v.g. by Plato of Tivoli,27
John of Seville, Adelard of Bath, Robert of Chester and still others,
although Bacon does acknowledge the importance of Adelard’s atti­
tude to new science. He markedly contrasts the new rational science
of Adelard with the blindness of mere appeals to authority.
2. Bacon’s strictures against the competence of his contemporaries
Hermann the German and William of Moerbeke as translators are
26 These patent shortcomings in Bacon’s information have been fully documented
by Thorndike and by Wingate as shown above; to whom we may refer without ado.
27 Yet Baon’s laments about the scientific poverty of latin literature [Compendium
studii philosophiae, p. 465] clearly echoes similar complaints by the twelfth century
translators Plato of Tivoli [prologue to his translation of al-Battani] and Hermann
of Carinthia [Astronomia, 4 prologues].
LATIN TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS 39
also well known but no less misplaced. Without any serious exami­
nation of their translations, Bacon declares ex cathedra that these
translators ignored both the sciences they were handling in the trans­
lations and the languages from which they were translating. Such a
serious charge should have been thoroughly documented to escape
being considered absolutely unconscionable. The only grounds on
which Bacon bases his sweeping criticism are purely subjective: “sicut
ego expertus sum omnino”.28 To re-inforce his judgment Bacon does
not hesitate to proclaim that he had read more than any one else in
these matters: “et audivi diligenter plures, et legi plus quam aliis, ut
omnes qui nutriti sunt in studio non ignorant” (ibid.). Bacon’s own
pretense at knowing these languages is never properly substantiated
and there seems to lurk more personal animosity than truth in the
wild accusations against contemporary translators.
3. Bacon’s lavish praises on the translator competence of his model
and master Robert Grosseteste is most revealing of his gross partiality.
On the one hand Bacon claims that Robert neglected all translations
of Aristotle’s works—presumably because of their defectiveness ac­
cording to Bacon—but attained at a true understanding of Aristotle’s
thought by following alternative and presumably more secure routes:
The lord Robert one time bishop of Lincoln of blessed memory [Gros­
seteste died 1253] set entirely aside the writings of Aristotle and their
methods, while through his own experience and different authors and
different disciplines he managed aristotelian scientific principles. So that
he knew and wrote about the contents of aristotelian writings hundred
thousand times better than can be grasped in vicious translations.29*
Now, as was amply noted before (Thorndike, Wingate), Bacon omits
any mention of Grosseteste translations of the Ethics of Aristotle for
28 “Sic translatae sunt et scientae communes, ut logica, naturalis philosophia,
mathematica ut nullus mortalis possit aliquid dignum de eis intelligere veraciter,
sicut ego expertus su m om nino”. Compendium studii philosophiae, p. 468; “et quanto
plus laborant tanto minus sciunt sicu t ego probavi in om n ib u s qui libris
A ristotelis a d h a eseru n t. . . ” ibid.
29 “Unde dominus Robertus quondam episcopus Lincolniensis sanctae memoriae
neglexit omnes libros Aristotelis et vias eorum, et per experientiam propriam et
auctores alios et per alias scientias negotiatus est in sapientialibus Aristotelis; et melius
centies millesies scivit et scripsit ilia de quibus libri Aristotelis loquuntur quam in
ipsius perversis translationibus capi possunt”. Compendium . .. p. 469. See R.W. South­
ern, Robert Grosseteste: The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe, 2nd ed.,
(Oxford, 1992), 16 on this passage. “This passage has often been quoted, and as a
factual statement it is absurd. Grosseteste did not neglect Aristotle; and he was not
unduly bothered by the short-comings of the existing translations” etc.
40 RICHARD LEMAY
instance, and of his many studies of aristotelian works.30 On the other
hand the works of Grosseteste in natural science quoted by Bacon
(on the Rainbow, on Comets) depend entirely on translations from
the Arabic, many of which were presumably included in the parisian
prohibitions of 1210. Bacon feigns to ignore this aspect of Grosseteste’s
scientific production which is otherwise full of astrological orientations,
all of them culled in translations from the Arabic. Thus Bacon’s claim
that Grosseteste neglected all translations of aristotelian writings must
be taken with a grain of salt. In addition, the claim that Grosseteste
reached at the heart of Aristotelian science by “following other ways”
could be justified exclusively on extensive use of translations from
the Arabic. Bacon is less than candid about his praise of Grosseteste’s
method in respect to the existing translations.
4. The opinion which R. Bacon entertains toward Albertus Magnus
is a disparaging one, to say the least, if Albertus is the character
aimed at in Bacon’s diatribe against eminent members of the reli­
gious Orders who he thinks are held in undeserved esteem. Hav­
ing formulated severe strictures about the poor philosophical training
in his fellow Franciscan St Bonaventure,31 Bacon declares himself
scandalized at the reputation and authority they enjoy among their
supporters, in particular “that one who is still alive” and receives
the title of doctor at Paris and who is quoted as an “author” at the
University:
The crowd [vulgus] credit them with knowing everything and adhere
to them as if to angels. Indeed they are quoted as “auctores” in dispu­
tations and lectures. In the first place that one [Albertus] who is still
living bears the title of doctor in Paris and is cited in the University as
an “auctor”. This cannot occur without serious threat of confusion and
ruin of learning because his writings are replete with an infinite num­
ber o f errors and much shallowness [vanitatibus]. Such monstrosity
[abusio] never occurred before.32
30 Cf. Wingate, op. cit. p. 115.
31 Calling him a saint is irrelevant in our argument, but it is useful in order to
distinguish him from that other Franciscan fra Bonaventure de Iseo mentioned earlier
as familiar of Albertus Magnus. The alternative would be to call the former Bona­
venture de Bagnoreggio.
32 “Vulgus credit quod omnia sciverunt et eis adhaeret sicut angelis. Nam illi
allegantur in disputationibus et lectionibus sicut auctores. Et maxime ille qui
vivit habet nomen doctoris Parisius et allegatur in studio sicut auctor. Quod non
potest fieri sine confusione et destructione sapientiae, quia ejus scripta plena sunt
falsitatibus et vanitatibus infinitis. Nunquam talis abusio fuit in hoc mundo.” (Opus
Minus, ed. Brewer, p. 322).
LATIN TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS 41
Although the identity of “that one” singled out for abuse by Bacon
has been hotly disputed there does not seem to have been anyone
but Albertus Magnus to fit this description of one who is held as a
“doctor” at Paris and who is quoted as an “auctor” in lectures and
disputations.33 Albertus Magnus is known as the only medieval scho­
lastic who was held as an “auctor” during his lifetime, a circum­
stance unheard of till then according to Bacon and to the judgment
of posterity. We venture to suggest that it was precisely writing the
Speculum astronomiae—undertaken at papal instigation and on the ground
of his sound learning, as attested by Bonaventure de Iseo, which
earned Albertus the title of an “auctor”, that is more than the one
who can “determine” a question in virtue of his title of magister at
the University, but one whose opinion ranks with “authorities”, that
is ancient authors, especially Church Fathers and is therefore unques­
tioned. This was indeed the role played, from the time of its appear­
ance till the end of the Middle Ages, by Albertus’ Speculum Astronomiae
as authoritative guide about the acceptability of books of natural
science.34 The Speculum furthermore was known to contemporaries to
have been instrumental in finally lifting the ban of 1210 against the
libri naturales.
On this score we may ponder how much of a rivalry or envy lies
in Bacon’s failure ever to mention the Speculum Astronomiae. Having
been requested by his friend Guy Foulques, who had become Pope
Clement IV in 1265, to explain his conception of scientific research
and methodology,35*Bacon must have seen in this opportunity a coun­
terpoise to Albertus’ reputation and credit in the world of scholars.
Henceforward Bacon imagined he could speak, perhaps with the credit
33 Cf. Jeremiah M.G. Hackett, “The Attitude of Roger Bacon to the Scientia od
Albertus Magnus” in James A. Weisheipl, O.P. ed. Albertus Magnus and die Sciences.
Commemorative Essays. Toronto 1980, pp. 53-72. Whereas previous literature did review
the case but partially, Hackett goes over all Bacon’s utterances criticising the “unnamed
Master”, only to conclude that this unnamed Master is really Albertus Magnus,
here however openly named.
34 Hence the apposition of Philip the Chancelor’s name not as author but as
owner of the unique copy that bears Philip’s name. A quite plausible condition
which was unwisely seized upon by P. Mandonnet in his futile attempt to remove
authorship of the “scandalous book” from Albertus Magnus, despite the unchallenge­
able testimony of the medieval tradition where the authority of Albert and of no
one else is ever invoked for the judgments inserted in the Speculum.
35 “Unde ad im perium dom ini d e m e n tis praedecessoris istius Papae [Gregory X
1271-1276], collegi in tractatu speciali electas sententias Scripturae et Sanctorum
juris canonici et philosophiae, et praeposui omnibus libris quos misi”. (Comp. Stud.
Phil. cap. Ill; Brewer p. 414).
42 RICHARD LEMAY
of an “auctor”, surely with a renewed zeal in favor of his idiosyn­
cratic perception of experimental science and of aristotelian lore. Hence
also Bacon’s unrelented trashing of existing trends in translations and
in aristotelian interpretation.
Bacon’s new ambition of rising to eminence in scholarly authority
was cut short by the death of his papal sponsor (1268), his rough
handling of contemporary leading scholars and unsparing criticism
of the role undertaken in aristotelian interpretation by the younger
generation of scholars, especially among Mendicants, seems to have
antagonized the whole rostrum at the University and in the Orders.
Hence the sharper tone of criticism levelled against them in the
Compendium studii philosophiae (1272) than in the Opus Maius addressed
to Clement IV (1266). Adding to the antagonism, Bacon’s insistence
on his “experimental science” which was much more accurately
perceived by Bacon’s contemporaries for what it was in reality: a
substitution of “iUuminism” in lieu of the preeminence of noetics (nous)
of aristotelian epistemology. Bacon’s preference for “illuminism” is
made quite clear in his definition and description of what he under­
stands by experimental science. For according to him there are two
kinds of “experientia”,36 one through external senses and it is by it
that we have access to all reality in the universe. By this kind of
“experientia” Bacon means the classical sense encountered in all Greek
philosophy. But there is another kind wich consits in “internal illu­
minations” and it has been tested by Christian (fideles) as well as by
pagans all over.37 Bacon makes no bone about the source from which
he conceived this kind of experientia: it is in the extremely popular
and widespread Centihquium or Liber Fructus by Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn
Yusuf [ps.-Ptolemy, and ps. Hali or Ali] in which knowledge from
inspiration is placed far above knowledge obtained through reason,
and is much more powerful and keen in grasping the profound
meaning of nature. O f course, the source of these inspirations is placed,
according to the Centihquium in the intelligences of the heavenly bodies.
Hence the close, unavoidable connection with the averroistic thesis
of the unity of the intellect. Averroes’ De substantia orbis has no other
aim. In addition to all other motives of deception for Bacon after
the disappearance of his papal patron in 1268, his conception of
36 Opus Maius. VI, cap. I.
37 Ibid. For a critical discussion of this issue, see Jeremiah Hackett, “Roger Bacon
on Scientia experimentalis” in this volume.
LATIN TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS 43
science and of the primacy of astrology were easily amalgated with
rampant averroism with which it will share the brutal shock of the
parisian condemnations issued by bishop Etienne Tempier in 1277.
4. Translations Favored by Bacon
Respecting the existing Latin translations of Aristotle’s works Bacon’s
criticism is unsparing, for the most part exaggerated and unfair. As
stated above it has no serious grounds generally and his tendency to
extend minor points to stand for the vast field of translations is clearly
unacceptable. An apt example may be taken from Bacon’s comment
on the presence of foreign or dialectical words or expressions intrud­
ing in translated texts. Bacon illustrates his point concerning the term
“belenum” appearing in the translation of (ps.-) Aristotle’s De vegeta-
bilibus38 from which a number of errors are supposed by him to have
affected understanding of Aristotle. And Bacon concludes: “de qua
causa est perversitas translationis, maxime in libris Anstotelis et scientiis
ejus, quae sunt fundamentum totius sapientiae”.3839 From this relatively
minor, case Bacon soon passes on to a universal condemnation: “it
were better for the Latins if the science {sapientia) of Aristotle had not
been translated instead of being transmitted with such obscurity and
perversion”.40 Bacon finally crowns his stricture with this drastic propo­
sition: “If I had any power in the matter, I should order all books of
Aristotle to be burned because their use in study is mere waste of
time, source of errors and spreading of ignorance beyond what could
be expressed”.41*Yet he had declared earlier that Aristotle’s science is
the fountain of all wisdom. How would Bacon then propose to fill
the gap?
With naive ingenuity Bacon thought that any proper understand­
ing of Aristotle’s science can only be acquired through use of the
original Greek texts: “Quicumque vult gloriari de scientia Anstotelis,
38 Compendium studii philosophiae. Cap. viii. Brewer p. 467.
39 Ibidem p. 468. Cf. p. 469: “Et quoniam labores Aristotelis sunt fundamenta
totius sapientiae, ideo nemo potest aestimare quantum dispendium accidit Latinis
quia malas translationes receperunt philosophi”.
40 Ibidem p. 469.
41 “Si enim haberem potestatem super libros Aristotelis ego facerem omnes cremari,
quia non est nisi temporis amissio studere in illis, et causa erroris et multiplicatio
ignorantiae ultra id quod valeat explicari”. Ibid., p. 469.
44 RICHARD LEMAY
oportet quod earn addiscat in lingua propria et nativa.”42 (p. 469).
This was clearly an impractical counsel, which he did not follow
himself for sure, no more than his ideal scholar Grosseteste for that
matter. On the contrary, both English scholars depended heavily on
Latin translations from the Arabic of works of science loudly claimed
by their authors to be interpreting Aristotle’s thought. And no won­
der, for both doctors in some fashion were continuators of the cen­
tury old English line of seekers after Arabic learning (Adelard of Bath,
Robert of Chester, Daniel of Morley, Roger of Hereford, Alfred of
Sareshel etc.), a tradition which came to be centered at Oxford some
time before Bacon’s birth, and could further progress unhindered by
the condemnations issued in 1210 by the “provincial council” at Paris.
Hence it remains an unfulfilled task of modem scholarship to ascer­
tain the degree to which Grosseteste’s scientific production is depending
on Arabic sources directly. For some of Grosseteste’s characteristic
themes of natural science are directly modeled on Arabic sources:
his work on Comets is a mere expansion of the appendix added to
Verba 99 and 100 of Ahmad ibn Yusuf (ps.-Ptolemy, ps.-Haly) Centih-
quium. His theory of the tides is in direct dependance of the treat­
ment of the topic by Abu Ma'shar in his Introductorium Maius, Tract
III. Finally Grosseteste’s “metaphysic of light”, though based on Genesis
and the Hexaemeron literature as it has seemed to some, is in fact an
expansion of the central notion of Arab astrology that heavenly bodies,
being of a fifth essence, therefore immaterial in a way, produced
their efficiency through light and motion exclusively. Hence the essence
of being (as bestowed by the stars) could be described as light and
therefore constitute the core of the study of metaphysics, i.e. of the
nature of being, a concept which fitted admirably the “ishriqiyya”
(oriental) philosophy of Avicenna, quite accessible to Grosseteste.
Concerning Roger Bacon’s choice of translations that would pre­
sumably provide more direct access to aristotelian science, the case
is an open and shut one. Bearing directly on his conception of experi­
mental science, they are his favorite Arab authors, especially in astro­
logy such as the Secret of Secrets of (ps.-) Aristotle to Alexander, or the
ps.-Ptolemaic Centiloquium, or the spurious Ovid De Vetula (of Richard
of Fournival) and its inspiration the Introductorium Maius in astronomiam
of Abu M acshar. So that Bacon’s unrelenting assault on the current
translations of aristotelian writings would seem aimed principally at
42 Ibid., p. 469.
LATIN TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS 45
substituting for them the “astrologicized” Aristotle of the Arabs. The
number of such works was legion and their bent quite similar. The
fullest and most accurate account of this variety of translations is
found in Albertus Magnus’ Speculum astronomiae.
It may thus be appropriate to point out that R. Bacon never cites
the Speculum Astronomiae. He would rely instead on the authority of
Isaac De febribus, or on Aristotle’s Secretum Secretorum, on the Ethics,
even on the Meteorologica for guidance as to how the scientist wishing
to remain within bounds of reasonableness will choose between good
and bad books of “natural science”. The criterion may seem nearly
identical with the one suggested by Albertus in the Speculum, namely
that the presence of invocation of demons, of incantations or “carmina”
and other kind of recourses to “evil” spirits should beckon the sincere
Christian to shun such books. Bacon trusts the reader to rely on his
sense of piety to be the sole judge.43 The criterion is much less strict
or precise, however, than in the Speculum Astronomiae.
While maintaining that the originals, either greek or Arabic, are
much better than what the Latin translators offered, Bacon never
produced credible example of what he would deem a good transla­
tion. Conversely, the stress he lays on the superiority of the spurious
Aristotle is nowhere supported by a valid demonstration. Compounding
his arrant ignorance—or was it deliberate oversight?—, Bacon laments
the fact that the Latins are far from possessing all of Aristotelian
science. He illustrates his point by citing a work of Aristotle of alleg­
edly major importance entitled De impressionibus calestibus which the
Latins did not yet possess, urging the pontiff (Clement IV) to provide
for its translation.44 As it happens, this is the standard title given by
Arab translators to Aristotle’s Meteorologka, a Latin translation of Book
IV of which already existed since approximately the middle of the
twelfth century in a translation from the Greek by Henricus Aristippus,
and of the first three books in translation from the Arabic by Gerard
43 “Considerandum est tamen quia multi libri reputantur inter magicos qui non
sunt tales, sed continent sapientiae dignitatem. Qui igitur sunt suspecti et qui non,
experientia cujuslibet sap ien tis docebit. Nam si quis in aliquo illorum opus
naturae vel artis inveniat, illud accipiat; si non, relinquat velut suspectum, et sicut
indignum est sapienti et illicitum magica pertractare, sic superfluum est nec est
necessarium”. Epistola de Secretis operibus Artis et Naturae. Ed. J.S. Brewer. Opera hactenus
inedita 1859, vol. I, p. 531.
44 “Aristoteles certificavit hoc in libro suo De impressionibus c<elestibus qui liber est melior
tota philosophia Latinorum et potest per vestram iussionem transferri”. Opus Maius.
Ed. Jebb, p. 246, as quoted by A. Jourdain, Recherches, p. 387.
 46 RICHARD LEMAY
of Cremona.45 Bacon must have culled his title from some Arabic
work in Latin translation, probably the Centiloquium of Abu Ja'far
Ahmad ibn Yusuf which had been translated five times during the
twelfth century and which contained under this label an explicit
reference to the Meteorologica of Aristode.46 Obviously Bacon failed
to realize this was the same as the Meteorologica of which the Latins
already possessed a fairly reliable translation, while his suggestion to
Clement IV to provide for its translation verges on crude philistinism.
For Bacon was wont to use both the Meteorologica and the Centiloquium,
the latter offering the primary inspiration for his singular notion of
experimental science.
The strictures Bacon placed upon the kind of aristotelian interpre­
tation favored by the younger generation of friar-scholars may very
well have been meant as a retort to the suspicion of “heresy” felt by
“orthodox” philosophers, including Albertus Magnus and Thomas
Aquinas, toward the “arabic” orientation of aristotelianism rooted at
Oxford since the late twelfth century and now carried to Paris in the
midst of the averroistic flourishing. Bacon may be seen as upholding
in his own way the arabic orientation which long prospered at Oxford,
while its parallel in Paris47 was being stifled. Aversion toward recep­
tion of “arab” science is rampant throughout the thirteenth century
at Paris. A similar warning was sounded in 1270 in the condemna­
tion of certain propositions, but the main crisis erupted in 1277 with
bishop Etienne Tempier damning as either heretical or nearly hereti­
cal some 219 propositions, the bulk of which aimed at aristotelian
metaphysics and natural philosophy interpreted along astrological
(averroistic) lines.
Some strains of this underlying current can be detected in Bacon’s
utterances decrying the translations of aristotelian works available in
his time. The problem has been honorably but not definitively explored
45 From which Bacon himself quotes frequently.
46 Under various latin titles such as liber de operibus altis in the “iam scripsi” ver­
sion, liber de hiis que superius accidunt in the “mundanorum”, liber de superioribus signis in
Hugh of Sanctalla’s version. Only the “abugafarus” translation clearly identifies the
work as liber metheororum, which could be an indication that the translator or “revi­
sor” involved in this manuscript tradition might be Gerard of Cremona. The usual
arabic title is fdtab al-athar al-culwiyya, the exact translation in Latin being precisely
liber de impressionibus altis.
47 Early traces of this trend at Paris can be gleaned in the works of Alanus de
Insulis, in his commentator Raoul de Longchamp and perhaps others. Henri d’Andeli’s
poem, ca. 1230 seems to echo the drawback at Paris.
LATIN TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS 47
by S.D. Wingate in her frequently quoted book. What seems to be
missing in her kind of approach is the failure to take into account
the predominantly astrological and “deterministic” character of aris­
totelian science as received in the first waves of translation from the
Arabic, and the guarded attitude of ecclesiastical authorities toward
its full acceptance, beginning of course with the fateful condemna­
tions and prohibitions of 1210 and 1215. Oxford (and perhaps
Toulouse at the time of its foundation in 1229) could freely indulge
their attachment to the new science from the Arabic and strive to
integrate it with the science lore surviving in late Roman compila­
tions like those of Macrobius, Capella, Chalcidius and Boethius, not
to mention Seneca, Pliny and Bede, traditional authorities in science
which to some extent did maintain their credit beside the new Arab
sources. When by the middle of the thirteenth century the publica­
tion of Albertus Magnus’ Speculum Astronomiae rendered inoperative
the prohibitions and sanctions of 1210, it opened the gates to unbridled
speculation about Aristotle’s natural science, mostly of the fatalistic
kind fostered by astrological principles. As Avicenna’s and Averroes’
influence grew in importance, their own version of aristotelian science
sent down to a lower level that of Abu Ma'shar and of the major
Arabian astrologers like Alchabitius and Haly al-Imrani (author of the
book on Elections, not the false Haly commentator of the Centiloquium)
viewed till then as authoritative carriers of aristotelian metaphysics
and natural philosophy. Roger Bacon for his part remained attached
to the older, “oxfordian”, unchecked strain of arabian aristotelianism
filtered through astrology. Hence his diatribes against the “new” devel­
opments in aristotelianism after the crisis of 1229—1231 at Paris and
his relentless disparaging afterwards of the translations on which they
were nourished. This is indeed a marked characteristic of the Roger
Bacon of the 1260’s. He attempts to defend the role of Abu Ma'shar,
Pseudo-Ptolemaic and other “experimental” books, when the younger
generation of University teachers were providing new and controver­
sial interpretations of the Aristotle’s texts, and when the younger
theologians like Bonaventure among the Franciscans were highly criti­
cal of the deterministic tendencies in the astrology and alchemy in
the new translations of scientific works.
 3. ROGER BACON ON THE
CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES

Jeremiah Hackett

I. Bacon and the Reform of Studies

The later works of Bacon, especially those written after 1266, are
not for the most part systematic and disinterested treatises. They are,
rather, a mixed collection of small tracts on a diversity of topics.
These tracts are linked together in the service of a polemic about the
education of university students in Paris in the mid-thirteenth century.
The reform of education and society is a theme which was close
to the interests of Bacon in his later years, that is, from about 1266
to 1292. His criticism of the scientia of Albertus Magnus, his stric­
tures against Alexander of Hales and Richard of Cornwall, and his
general condemnation of the young friars of his times, were all part
of his belief that studies in the arts, medicine and theology had
degenerated in the course of his life-time.
Bacon saw himself as a spokesman for an older form of study,
namely, the kind of secular and sacred study which had been fos­
tered by Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (ca. 1168-1253), who
had been the first lecturer to the Franciscans at Oxford from 1229-
1235. Bacon also praised scholars who had some association with
Oxford and Lincoln such as Adam Marsh, Robert Marsh, William
Lupus, William of Shyrewode, and Thomas of Wales. His praise of
these scholars is repeated many times in contrast to his condemna­
tion of the vulgus studentium.
The criticism of individual aspects of studies by Bacon is informed
by a vision on his part of the ultimate purpose of education. In the
manner of Robert Grosseteste, Adam Marsh and the English Fran-
ciscian tradition, Bacon saw a practical unity and purpose in educa­
tion. The pursuit of a moral and religious fife gave a finality to the
many diverse forms of study in the arts. John H. Mundy, among
others, has drawn attention to the presence in Bacon of “a utopian
vision of the world and man’s relation to his neighbour.” He char­
acterized this vision as follows:
 50 JEREMIAH HACKETT
. . . the Christian idea of progress never lost its appeal. It flourished in
a final burst o f glory at the end of the thirteenth century, when, in the
work o f Roger Bacon and others, this historical vision was combined
with the natural history and moral sociology of the Aristotelians. In
Roger, mechanical inventions like flying machines and optical devices,
astral and geographical influences, the correct ordering of law and
society, the abolition of sexual and moral irregularity, and the reform
o f education, were all necessary to defeat the Tartars, the Sacracens,
and the soon-to-appear antichrist.1
In his account of Bacon’s idea of reform, Mundy gives a composite
quotation from the Opus maius of Roger Bacon which expresses in
clear terms the essentially practical purpose of Bacon’s attitude to
education.2
The structure of Bacon’s works about 1266-1272 reflects both this
central vision of a reformed life and the particular changes that he
thought were necessary in studies. From the introductory letter to
the works for the pope,3 it is evident that the organization of the
Opus maius, Opus minus, and the Opus tertium, follows a distinct pattern.
Moreover, this pattern is repeated in the Compendium studii philoso-
phiae and in the Compendium studii theologiae. The pattern consists of
(i) a critique of the errors in studies, (ii) a study of the relation of
philosophy to theology, (iii) a review of the deficiencies in language
study, (iv) a study of the role of mathematics, especially geometry,
and astrology in learning, (v) a review of the place of perspectiva in
studies, (vi) the relation of experimental science to theology, (vii) a
1 John H, Mundy, Europe in the High Middle Ages 1150-1309, New York, 1973
p. 492.
2 Ibid., p. 493: “I do not wish ‘to set my mouth against the heavens’, but I know
that if the Church would study Holy Scripture and sacred prophecy and the foretellings
of the Sibly, of Merlin, of Aquila, of Joachim and many others, and also of the
histories and books of the philosophers, and would order the ways of astronomy to
be studies, a sufficient suspicion or even certitude of the time of the antichrist will
be discovered.. .. And it is believed by all the wise that we are not far from the
times of the antichrist. . .. And because individuals, cities and whole regions can be
changed for the better according to the aforesaid, life should be prolonged as long
as necessary, all things should be managed functionally, and even greater things can
be done than are mentioned in this book not only in the natural sciences, but
also in the moral sciences and arts, as is evident in Moses and Aristotle.” (Taken
from the Opus maius, pars quarta, ed. Bridges, Vol. 1, pp. 269, 402.) For a study
which treats the idea of reform in Adam Marsh and Roger Bacon but which relates
it to the apocalyptic-millenial expectations, see Davide Bigali, I Tartari E “Apocalisse,
Richerche sull’escatologia in Adamo Marsh e Ruggero Bacone” (La Nuova Italia Editrice)
Firenze, 1971.
3 F.A. Gasquet, “An Unpublished Fragment”, pp. 507-517.
ROGER BACON ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 51
review of moral philosophy as the goal of the other areas of study.
There is much repetition of material in the above mentioned works.
Bacon continued to repeat and also to make additions in all of his
later writings.
The deficient state of studies was, in his view, reflected in the
corruption of society. Bacon listed the vacancy in the papacy (1268—
1271), the conflict among the religious orders, the success of the
lawyers in drawing students away from the arts, and the conflict
between the religious and secular clerics at the University of Paris.4
He traced the corruption of studies to a practice which had been
common since about 1230 in which young theologians went out to
preach and teach without the benefit of a full liberal arts training.5
In the Opus minus,6 Bacon placed the blame for the decline of
studies on the shoulders of Alexander of Hales and Albertus Magnus.
In this same work, he gave an outline of the decline of studies in
terms of six major sins (errors).7
The first error (sin) in theology, for Bacon, concerns the place of
philosophy. He claimed that the method of philosophy in the phihsophia
communis of his time had come to dominate the study of theology,
especially through the book of the Sentences. For Bacon, the error
consisted in replacing Sacred Scripture with the book of Sentences as
the primary text for lecturers. It was Bacon’s belief that such a philo­
sophical treatment of the fundamental truths of theology led to a
neglect of Sacred Scripture.8
The second error in theology consists in the lack of the sciences.
The “greater sciences” in Bacon’s view were ignored by the theolo­
gians. By these, Bacon meant perspective, astronomy, the science of
weights, medicine, experimental science, alchemy and agriculture.
These sciences deal with the practical good of the body, the soul,
and fortune.9
The third error has to do with ignorance of the philosophia communis
on the part of young theologians. In Bacon’s view, many of the young
friars did not have an adequate training in the arts. He believed that
4 Compendium studii philosophise, ed. Brewer, pp. 399, 418-425.
5 Ibid., pp. 425-429.
6 Opus minus, ed. Brewer, pp. 322-350.
7 Ibid., pp. 326-327.
8 Opus minus, ed. Brewer, p. 322.
9 Ibid., p. 323.
 52 JEREMIAH HACKETT
their teachers such as Alexander of Hales and Albertus Magnus learned
the philosophy of Aristotle in the course of their preaching life.10
Bacon blamed Alexander of Hales for introducing the book of the
Sentences into lectures in place of the Bible and the Histories. He objected
to Albertus Magnus because he was self-taught in common philoso­
phy, was lacking in his knowledge of the “special sciences” and did
not have an adequate knowledge of ancient languages, especially of
Greek and Hebrew. They did not have the kind of arts training that
Bacon thought to be a requirement of any valid theology.
Further, Bacon claimed that young scholars of his time knew the
works of Aristotle only on the basis of translations, which, in his
view, were very inadequate.11
The fourth error in theology is due to the fact that the book of
the Sentences had replaced the book of the Histories as an aid in the
study of Sacred Scripture.12 That is, the familiar Historia scholastica of
Peter Comestor, which narrated biblical stories simply, was replaced
by terse allusions to incidents that happened to be maintained by
Peter Lombard.
The fifth error has to do with the terrible state of the Vulgate
version of the Bible. Bacon said that “The text of Scripture is for the
most part horribly corrupt in the Vulgate exemplar, that is, the Paris
exemplar.”13 In his view, this text ought to have been corrected in
the light of the most ancient copies of the biblical text, and with the
aid of a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew.
The sixth error is related to the fifth. Bacon believed that the
young theologians were not able to understand the literal meaning
of Scripture, and as a result, they were not able to understand the
spiritual meaning. This, according to him, was due to an ignorance
of Greek and Hebrew on the part of both teachers and students.
These teachers and students also lacked a knowledge of Latin and
the auxiliary sciences such as natural history, astronomy, medicine
and alchemy, which were necessary for a critical reading of the Bible.
These sciences were essential aids for the theologian in the interpre­
tation of the sacred text.14
10 Opus minus, ed. Brewer, p. 326. This is in reference to Alexander of Hales; See
Compendium studii phibsophia, ed. Brewer, pp. 425-429 for an expanded view.
11 Ibid., p. 325. See also the following: Compendium studii philosophise, ed. Brewer,
pp. 468-473 and Compendium studii theobgiae, ed. Rashdall, p. 34.
12 Opus minus, ed. Brewer, pp. 328-330.
13 Ibid., p. 330.
14 Opus minus, ed. Brewer, pp. 349-350.
ROGER BACON ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 53
Bacon’s program of studies in the Opus minus and in his other
works postdating 1266 is one in which secular learning is seen to be
essentially of service towards the interpretation of Sacred Scripture.15
For him, philosophy is not seen as a totally self-sufficient pursuit.
Rather, it finds its goal in the service that it renders in being an
ancilla for the study of theology. The account of the sciences and
philosophy in Bacon’s later works is largely a polemic for the uses of
the liberal arts in the reading of Sacred Scripture.
II. Bacon and die Traditional Classification of the Sciences
In the three works for the pope, Bacon does not spell out any new
curriculum of studies for the universities though he did criticize the
existing one. He merely identified some problems on studies, and
proposes certain remedies. In the Communia naturalium, however, which
was probably written later in the 1260’s, Bacon gives an exposition
of “the greater sciences”. He also notes in the Opus minus16 that the
study of foreign languages and moral science, together with mathe­
matics, experimental science and alchemy, are more conductive to
the advancement of the mind, the body and society than are some
other sciences. By these latter, Bacon meant the study of Latin gram­
mar, logic, the more insignificant part of natural philosophy and a
part of metaphysics.
Yet, Bacon was not the first teacher in the thirteenth century to
propose a study of the sciences. He, like other thirteenth century
scholars, had inherited a tradition of the classification of the sciences
that mapped out the vast range and ordering of human knowledge.
To appreciate Bacon’s emphasis on the seven special sciences, namely
“the greater sciences,” a short review of this traditional classification
is required.
Medieval scholars had inherited the Boethian division of the sci­
ences in terms of speculative and practical spheres.17 Speculative
15 Ibid., pp. 322-323; see estpeciaUy F.A. Gasquet, “An Unpublished Fragment”,
p. 509: “Nam sum certus quod solum illud de philosophia est utile et dignum quod
sapientia sacra dignatur, sicut ab ancilla, requirere: totum enim residuum stultum
est et insanum.”
Bacon presents this same position in the Opus maius. See Opus maius, ed. Bridges,
III, pp. 36-79.
16 Opus Minus, ed. Brewer, pp. 323-4.
17 Boethius, The Theobgical Tractactes, (Loeb Library), Cambridge, 1973, De trinitate,
54 JEREMIAH HACKETT ROGER BACON ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 55

philosophy was divided into physics, mathematics and theology. Prac­ Robert Grosseteste, the first known Latin commentator on the Pos­
tical philosophy was concerned with the ethics of the individual, family terior Analytics,20 this work gave scholars a scientific method which could
and society. be applied to a knowledge of experience in order to attain causes
Other divisions of the sciences, such as those of Gassiodorus (ca. and scientific explanations. The influence of the Posterior Analytics on
485—580) and Isidore of Seville (ca. 570—636) were also in use in the Bacon’s notion of scientific method and on his notion of experimen­
early Middle Ages. In the case of Isidore,18 one finds that his division tal science, can be seen from his own texts.21
of the liberal arts is placed alongside the traditional Stoic division of The gradual reception of the works of Anstode on natural phi­
philosophy into logic, physics, and ethics, as well as the “Boethian” losophy into the curriculum of the universities in the thirteenth cen­
division. tury did not, however, make a radical change in the division of the
In the twelfth century a new classification of the sciences emerged. sciences which had existed since the twelfth century. James Weisheipl
James Weisheipl describes this synthesis of the two traditional divi­ describes the process of incorporation as one in which “the new
sions of philosophy as “a successful combination of the Boethian and Aristotelian learning was simply tacked onto the liberal arts.”22*
Stoic divisions of ‘science’”.19
The introduction of the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle into the Latin
West brought a new influence to bear on scientific method in the Theology—deals with forms truly separated from matter
Theoretical Arithmetic — deals with forms of bodies
early thirteenth century. As can be seen from the commentary of or Music conceived apart from
Mathematics —
Speculative Geometry matter
(= naturalis) Astronomy
Physics- deals with forms in matter and motion
pp. 8-10, The following diagram of Boethius’s division is taken from James A.
Weisheipl, “The Nature, Scope and Classification of the Sciences”, in David C. Practical Ethics of the individual
Iindberg, ed., Science in the Middle Ages, Chicago, 1978, p. 471: or active Ethics of the family (economics)
(= moralis) Ethics of the state (politics)
Physics—material bodies in motion both Fabric-making
In reality and in mental definition. Arm am ent-m aking
Mathematics— changing material bodies, Mechanical Commerce
considered apart from their or Agriculture
matter and motion; “Adultrine Hunting
Speculative Subdivided into arithmetic, arts” Medicine
Geometry, music and Theatrics
astronomy.
Philosophy — Theology—changeless, immaterial things Logic Grammar
both in reality and in mental (= sermocinalis) Dialectics (logic)
consideration. Rhetoric
Practical Ethics of the individual (monastics)
Ethics of the family (domestics) 20 Pietro Rossi, Robertas Grosseteste— Commentarius in Posteriorum Analyticorum Ubros,
Ethics of society (politics) crit. ed., Florence, 1981. Grosseteste wrote his commentary on the version by James
of Venice around 1228-1230. It was apparently written as the commentaries of
18 Ibid., p. 472. Averroes became available in Latin about 1225—30. The importance of this work
19 Ibid., pp. 473-4: “In the twelfth century a more thorough synthesis of the two can be seen from the large number of extant manuscripts and printed editions. See
ancient classifications was presented in the various Didascalia, or general introduc­ A.C. Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and the Origins of Experimental Science, 1100—1700, Oxford,
tions to the artes. These summary treatises follow the general pattern of the tradi­ 1953 Ch. 3, pp. 44—60 for an account of this method.
tional Disciplinarum libri, discussing the nature and classification of learning, and briefly 21 Ibid., p. 140 for a fist of Bacon texts in which there is a marked influence of
explaining the nature of each art. The best known of these is the Didascalicon of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics.
Hugh of St Victor (1096-1141). In this remarkable treatise seven mechanical arts 22 James A. Weispheipl, “The Nature, Scope and Classification of the Sciences”,
are introduced as parts of ‘philosophy’ in order to balance the seven liberal arts; all p. 476: “When the books of the new Aristotelian learning were incorporated into
seven liberal arts, including grammar, find a place in this classification.” The schema the medieval universities, it was simply a matter of adding physics, ethics and first
which on the next page, which represents this combination, is taken from Weisheipl, philosophy (metaphysics) to an existing structure of the seven liberal arts. There was
ibid., p. 474. not need for a new mathematics, for Euclid, Ptolemy, and Boethius were already
56 JEREMIAH HACKETT ROGER BACON ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 57

Between the years 1170 and 1270 a variety of works on the classifi­ The beginning of his work, the Communia naturalium,24 is of interest in
cation of the sciences were translated into Latin. Among the more this respect. It presents us with a list of sciences which Bacon held
important works were De scientiis and De ortu scientiarum of al-Farabi, to be an essential part of philosophy, and some of which were not
translated from the Arabic by Dominic Gundissalinus. Dominic Gun- included in earlier divisions of science, including that of Bacon’s near
dissalinus also composed a work of his own on the division of the contemporary, Robert Kilwardby. It also presents us with Bacon’s
sciences, entitled De dwisione philosophiae. Perhaps, the most ambitious criticism of the natural philosophy of Aristotle.
and methodic consideration of the classification of the sciences in the In the Communia naturalium,25 Bacon gives his account of the order
thirteenth century was the widely known work De ortu scientiarum by and classification of the sciences under the following headings: (a) de
Robert Kilwardby. As will be seen from the following chart by James ordine scientiae naturalis ad differentiae \sic\ (on the order of the natural
Weisheipl, Kilwardby’s schema was “more sophisticated, rich, and sciences in regard to the differences of the sciences), (b) de numero et
thorough than any of the twelfth century divisions of the sciences.”23 ordine scientiarum naturalium (on the number and order of the natural
The introduction of the new Aristotelian learning is reflected in sciences), (c) de modo procedendi in tractando de naturalibus (on the method
Bacon’s own concern for the order and classification of the sciences. of proceeding in dealing with the natural sciences).
In the first paragraph of the Communia naturalium, Bacon remarks
that he had treated grammar and logic in an earlier volume, and the
taught as parts of the quadrivium; similarly, logic, grammar, and rhetoric were al­ parts of mathematics in a second. In this third volume, he remarks
ready in the universities as the trivium. The new Aristotelian learning was simply
tacked onto the liberal arts program as ‘the three philosophies’: natural philosophy, that he is presenting the study of natural philosophy, and in a fourth
moral philosophy, and first philosophy (metaphysics). With the addition of these volume, he proposed to join together the exposition of metaphysics
new ‘sciences’ the faculty of arts became known as the faculty of arts and sciences.”
23 Ibid., p. 480:
and moral philosophy.26
Bacon, then, begins with a brief account of the division of learn­
Old Testament ing in his own works. This is best seen in the following schema:
Divine
New Testament
I. First in the order of exposition is grammar in regard to Latin and
(physics) foreign languages, together with logic. II. Mathematics, which is
Natural Science divided into common and special. III. Natural philosophy, which
Divine Geometry
Things Astronomy is divided into common (the exposition of Aristotle) and special (the
(= specu­ Mathematics Perspective outline of the seven sciences). IV. metaphysics. V. moral philosophy.
lative) Music Bacon sees moral philosophy as the end of all the other sciences. It
Arithmetic
supplies the practical good and the goal towards which the other
Philosophy — Metaphysics, first philosophy “speculative” sciences are to be directed.27 One will note from this
Monastics text too that Bacon sees astrology as a science which establishes the
Ethics Domestics
Politics unity of the first cause and the multiplicity of the intelligences.
Operative _ The brief account of the subject matter28 of the natural sciences in
(= practical) Farming
Cooking
Human — Human Mechanical Medicine
Things Tailoring 24 Communia naturalium, I, ed. Steele, pp. 1-14.
Armament­ 25 Ibid., pp. 1-2.
making 26 Ibid., p. 1. This was to be his four-fold division of all of philosophy: Grammar
Building and Logic; Mathematics; Natural Philosophy; Moral Philosophy.
Verbal Grammar 27 Communia naturalium, I, ed. Steele, pp. 1-2: “Postquam tradidi Grammaticam
(= Sermoci- Logic secundum linguas diversas prout valent immo eciam necessarie sunt studio Latinorum,
nalis) Rhetoric et Logicalia cum hiis expedivi; atque in secundo volumine tractavi.. . .”
Magic—to be avoided. 28 Ibid., 2.
58 JEREMIAH HACKETT
the Communia naturalium begins with the statement that the natural
sciences (naturalia) deal with those things in which there is a principle
of motion and rest (principium motus et quietis), such as minerals, plants,
and animals. In these, one finds the principle of motion and rest
existing naturally (naturaliter). Bacon then lists the kinds of change
that occur in the natural world, namely local motion, generation,
alteration, augmentation and diminution. The heavens however,
although they do have a principle of motion in themselves, do not
have a principle of rest like other natural things. Thus, it is not
appropriate to refer to them as natural things (inaturalia) in the strict­
est sense of the word. But they can be called natural on account of
the motion and rest that they cause in the elements. They move
inferior natural things voluntarily and not by necessity.
In the second chapter, Bacon discusses the number and order of
the natural sciences {De numero et ordine scienciarum naturalium). He tells
us that in his Metaphysics, he demonstrated that need for a science
which considers the common aspects of the natural things, that it, a
scientia which is de communibus naturalium.29 He argues that just as
Aristode composed a work on the common elements of natural things
in the Physica, so it is necessary to do the same for other areas of
study. He had written, he says, a Communia mathematica before he
presented the special parts of that study.30
At this stage in his exposition, Bacon begins his criticism of
Aristode’s natural philosophy. His first criticism charges that even in
special tracts such as De caelo et mundo, Aristode does not give a de­
tailed account of the phenomena of the heavens. In Bacon’s view, he
merely gives “common conclusions” (conclusiones communes). By this,
Bacon means that Aristode teaches nothing in particular about the
substantial natures of the heavens, the stars, their influence on the
inferior bodies, the nature of fight in these planets, the obscurity of
the eclipse, or the movement of certain planets.31 Neither, in his view,
does Aristotle teach about the number of planets, the contiguity
of the orbs or their number or about the altitude of the heavens or
the stars. Nor does Aristotle give an account of the habitable parts
of the earth in terms of magnitude, figure and place, the complex­
ions of natures of the elements, or their qualities and powers. Bacon
29 Communia naturalium, I, ed. cit., 3.
30 Ibid., 3.
31 Ed. cit., 4.
ROGER BACON ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 59
adds that it is “almost the same everywhere in all other books on
natural things.”32
From his introduction to Communia naturalium, it is evident that Bacon
levels two charges against Aristotle: the first charge is that Aristotle
did not pay sufficient attention to the details of the particular sci­
ences, and the second is that even in his account of what is common
to all the natural sciences, he was deficient. For Bacon, it was the
task of metaphysics to set out the origin, division and order of all the
sciences so as to display the limits of each science. In the Communia
naturalium, and also in the Communia mathematica, Bacon singled out
seven special sciences which he regarded as superior to the traditional
sciences taught in the schools. They are fisted as perspective, astronomy
(judicial and operative), the science of weights, alchemy, agriculture,
medicine, and experimental science.33 Bacon does not go into any
detail in his presentation here. He merely fists the names and then
gives a brief description of each science.
Among “the seven special sciences”, Bacon first mentions perspec­
tive. He regarded this science as the means by which one can under­
stand the structure of the universe.34 Bacon devoted the whole of
part five of the Opus maius to perspective. This treatment covers the
general area of vision, structure of the eye, and the nature of colour.
The central role of perspective in Roger Bacon’s conception of hu­
man knowledge has been recognized by modern scholars of optics.
In his study of Theories of Visionfrom Al-Kindi to Kepler, David C. Iindberg
assessed various influences on Bacon, gave an account of Bacon’s
originality, and examined the metaphysical basis of fight in Bacon’s
work.35 He acknowledged in passing that the insight of Fisher and
Unguru regarding Bacon’s purposes in writing about perspective is
“precisely the right emphasis.”36 They point out that all of Bacon’s
works are directed towards presenting a unity of knowledge that is
teachable in systematic form. And Bacon’s purpose in writing a tract
on perspective was to set forth the traditional teaching on perspective,
32 Ed. cit., 4.
33 Ed. cit., 5: Declaravi igitur in ilia parte Mathematice quod preter scienciam
communem naturalibus sunt septem speciales: videlicet, Perspectiva, Astronomia
(judicaria et operativa), scientia ponderum de gravibus et levibus, Alkimia, Agncultura,
Medicina, Scientia experimentalis.
34 Opus tertium, ed. Brewer, 37.
35 David C. Iindberg, Theories of Vision from Alkindi to Kepler, Chicago & London,
1976, 107-116.
36 Ibid., 112.
 60 JEREMIAH HAGKETT
especially that of Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham) in a teachable form.
The second science mentioned by Bacon, astronomy, is divided
into three parts in the Communia naturalium,37 Parts one and two are
concerned with the quantity of the heavenly bodies. Part three is
known today as astrology. The first part deals with the mathematical
principles involved in giving a theoretical account of celestial motions,
such as is given by Ptolemy in his Almagest. This is sometimes called
“speculative astronomy”. Bacon calls the second part “practical astro­
nomy”, and says that it involves the uses of canons, astronomical
tables and instruments. The third part of astronomy is concerned with
the natural powers of the heavenly bodies, and with their influence
on inferior bodies.
Bacon, however, does not name any authors he has in mind on
astrology; he simply notes that Averroes in his commentary on De
caelo et mundo says that Aristotle handed on this part of astronomy
in his scientia de impressionibus.38 Bacon refers to various parts of astro­
nomy in numerous texts: and he devotes to it the whole of part four
in his Opus maius.
Bacon mentions the science of weights as the third in his list of
seven special sciences, and in his prefatory letter39 to the Opus maius
he notes that the scientia de ponderibus was treated by him in the later
work in the section on mathematics. But we not have this section in
the modern editions.
Alchemy was regarded by Bacon as an important science which
was not studied at all in the schools. He seems to have written a
37 Communia naturalium, I, ed. cit., 6: Nam ut prius in Mathematicis habitum est,
Astronomia est triplex. Due sunt de quantitate celestium et parcium habitabilis
(habitilium!) una speculative ut in Almagesti tradita, alia practica, ut in Canonibus et
Tabulis et Instruments, que due non descendunt ad naturales virtutes celorum et
stellarum, nec ad alteraciones inferiorum naturalium, neque ad judicia, neque op­
era, quia horum consideracio pertinet ad philosophiam naturalem. Et ideo est tertia
Astronomia, que hec naturalia in celestibus et inferioribus investigat, quam tradidit
Aristoteles in Scientia de impressionibus, sicut docet Averoys secundo Celi et Mundi
et Liber novem judicum, et alii hoc cercius attestantur. Hec autem Astronomia traditur
perfecte in libro Plurimum judicum, et in multis aliis libris de hac sciencia,. . . See also
Communia mathematica, 49-50.
38 See Opus maius, part four, ed. Bridges, I, 389-90 on this work. See Thorndike,
A History o f Magic and. Experimental Science, II, 248, 256; Sarton, op. cit., 577-78. See
Lemay above.
39 F.A. Gasquet, “An Unpublished Fragment. . . ”, 514: Unde in ilia parte tanguntur
radices magne scientie que vocatur scientia de ponderibus. Bacon could have drawn
his information from various treatises entitled scientia de ponderibus dealing with statics,
notably the one composed by Jordanus de Nemore.
ROGER BACON ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 61
number of tracts on this subject and to have included treatments of
it in the three works for the pope. In the Opus tertium (ed. Little), one
finds mention of a tract entitled De enigmatibus alkimiae, and in the
Opus maius and Opus minus, one finds polemics in favour of alchemy.
But he seems not to have written a detailed exposition of this science,
at least none that we know of now. According to Bacon, the vulgus,
using the authority of Aristotle at the end of the Metheora, claim that
alchemy is impossible. Bacon, using the authority of pseudo-Aristotle’s
Secretum secretorum, argues that Aristotle himself had a positive teach­
ing on alchemy.40
Agriculture, the fourth special science, is generally discussed by
Bacon in his works on medicine. In doing this, he points to the effi­
cacy of certain plants and herbs. He does not, however mention a
separate work on agriculture.
Bacon’s treatment of medicine, the sixth special science, is very
extensive. Apart from the collection of tracts on a variety of medical
topics, edited by Little and Withington,41*other references to medical
matters abound throughout Bacon’s works. He was of the opinion
that teachers of medicine in the schools (ca. 1266) neglected math­
ematics and experiment in their teaching and study of medicine. From
this work too, it is clear that Bacon envisaged an essential connec­
tion between medicine and scientia experimentalis, the last and most
important special science.
In Opus maius, part six, Bacon summarized his doctrine of experi­
mental science. This science which he does not describe in detail in
the Communia naturalium, is seen as a kind of practical Logic by means
of which one can distinguish true science from the frauds of magic.
This science has three main prerogatives of functions. They are:
a) the ability to verify experientially the conclusions of the other sci­
ences which are based on argument or authority; b) the discovery by
experience of truths in the other sciences which are hidden from
those sciences themselves; c) the prognostication of future events and
the discovery of the secrets of nature. (Bacon regarded the third
function as scientia experimentalis secundum se et absolute. It alone was
experimental science absolutely speaking. The first two functions had
to do with the use and application of experimental science in the
other sciences.)
40 Communia naturalium, ed. cit., 7. See William Newman’s chapter below.
41
See Faye Getz’ chapter below.
62 JEREMIAH HACKETT ROGER BACON ON THE GLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 63

Some of these special sciences, for example, medicine, astronomy quantitative parts and astrology, should be included in the normal
and optics, were already listed in Kilwardby’s De ortu scientiarum. In the course of study.
case of perspective, Bacon makes the point that this science “is not Bacon’s main point seems to be that the omission of the seven
yet taught at Paris, nor among the Latins, except twice at Oxford.”42 special sciences from the schools led to a deficiency in the teaching
In his view, not even ille, qui fecit se auctorem (Albertus Magnus), knew of the liberal arts, and as a consequence to a deficiency in the study
this science. Bacon’s discussion of astronomy in the Opus maius, part of philosophy and theology. The following is a schema44 of Bacon’s
four, would seem to show that although the works of Ptolemy and sciences, including the seven special sciences which he wished to
other astronomers were taught in the schools, there was considerable emphasize in the Christian education of his time.
debate, particularly among theologians, about the status of astrology.
It is evident from the later works of Bacon (post 1266) that astrology Geometry
was not acceptable to many theologians of his time. Mathematics ^ — Arithmetic
Bacon does not give much information about the teaching of the V V ^ Music
\ \ P prsnprtivp*
science of weights in his extant works. In the case of medicine, he 1) Specuhtwa:
mainly criticized the content and methods of the common medical (Almagest)
teaching in the schools. In the case of sciential experimental and al­ 2) Practical (Canones,
chemy, however, Bacon strongly argued for their inclusion in the Astronomy Tabula, Instrumental).
3) Astrobgia seu judicialis*:
curriculum of studies. While the inclusion of alchemy in the univer­ De impressionibus.
sity curriculum was strongly opposed by Bacon’s contemporaries, as (Liber novem Judicum,
is clear from his writings, no one, it would seem, thought of scientia Liber plurimum Judicum)
experimental in the unique way that Bacon did.
Science of Weights
Perhaps the best way to see what is new in Bacon’s account of the Alchemy*
sciences would be to set out his seven sciences in diagram form, and Special Natural Sciences Medicine* (Experimental)
compare them with the list proposed by his contemporary, Robert Experimental Science
Kilwardby. In Kilwardby’s account of the sciences above (n. 23) one (.scientia experimentalis)*
finds geometry, astronomy, perspective, music and arithmetic listed
as worthy of study. In his list of the seven special sciences, Bacon A stormy debate arose between theologians and arts teachers during
does not include geometry, music or arithmetic. He assumes they the thirteenth century about the status of such subjects as astrobgia
were part of the Quadrivium. He does include astronomy, perspective, (the third part of astronomy), alchemy, and implicitly scientia experi­
music and arithmetic listed as worthy of study. Yet, it is clear from mentalis. These latter forms of study were regarded by many as fall­
the Opus maius, part four,43 that Bacon saw a central place for geom­ ing under the category of natural magic. They were not included by
etry, music and arithmetic in the study of nature. Thus, the fact that Kilwardby under the heading of philosophy.
he did not list them among the seven special sciences does not mean The critical points in Bacon’s schema, therefore, are not those
that he did not give them an important role in his plan of education. sciences which had been in common use in the universities by 1266.
In presenting his case for perspective and astronomy as two special They are, rather, astrology, alchemy and scientia experimentalis. And of
sciences, Bacon was not just recognizing the existence of these stud­ the three, the latter was the most important for Bacon. It alone had
ies in the curriculum. He was setting out an argument for a new the function of experimental verification of truth in the other sciences.45
kind of perspective, namely that of Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham). But Further, Bacon argues that sciences such as medicine, alchemy and
even more: he insisted that all three parts of astronomy, the two
44 I have constructed this schema from a combination of Communia naturalium and
42 Opus tertium, ed. Brewer, 37. Opus maius, part four. The asterisk indicates a new science.
43 Opus maius, part four, ed. Bridges, I, 178-9. 45 See Roger Bacon, Tractatus in quo jit sermo de experientia in communi, Jeremiah
64 JEREMIAH HACKETT ROGER BACON ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES 65

other had only imperfect experiences.46 Even astrology and the com­ for Astrology. And of course, Grosseteste does allow a place for
mon astronomy lacked full certainty without scientia experimentalist1 Astrology in both human and natural concerns.
And this is of course the problem for Roger Bacon’s relationship Roger Bacon looked back to Grosseteste from the complex world
to his Hero, Robert Grosseteste.48 As I have argued elsewhere, this of the University of Paris in the 1260’s. And he saw in Lincolniensis
issue together with the issue of the eternity of the World marks the inspiration for a renewed linguistic, natural and moral philoso­
departure from the views of Robert Grosseteste. And yet, having phy. But, as we have seen, much had happened in the whole classifi­
acknowledged this difference, we should briefly look back at Robert cation of the sciences since the De artibus liberalibus of Grosseteste in
Grosseteste’s own proposals for a classification of the sciences in De the early part of the century. Yet, Bacon took over Grosseteste’s vision
artis liberalibus in order to discover whether or not Roger Bacon is of studies as his own crusade. And the Paris of the 1260’s was no
influenced by his Hero. less hostile to “experimental” books then than it was in 1210 and
As was argued in chapter one, there is no straight line of influence 1215. And in order to deal with this problem, Roger Bacon was to
from Robert Grosseteste to Roger Bacon. And yet, as the De artibus return to sources from an earlier age than that of Grosseteste and
liberalibus of Grosseteste shows, there is core of a classification of the Kilwardby. That source was the master-work in Hermeneutics from
sciences in this latter work which Roger Bacon took up and devel­ Late Antiquity, the De doctrina Christiana of the North African roman
oped.49 First, the causes of error are set out. The liberal arts are seen philosopher, Augustine.51 That, however, is a matter for the chapters
as a means to overcome ignorance and to develop the moral person. which follow.
Aspectus et qffectus. Grammar, logic and rhetoric inform and remove
error; rhetoric persuades. What is emphasised most of all is the Tran­
scendental role of Music: it affects all aspect of the micro and macro­
cosm. It covers everything from sound in Speech to the harmony of
the spheres. This introduces the importance of number and the other
members of the Quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry and astronomy.
He then presents the Moralis scientia has that which teaches what is
to be sought and what to be avoided. He adds: “Indeed, Rhetoric
teaches the desiring self what to seek and the angry self what to
avoid. On account of this, Moral Science with the help of Rhetorical
style seeks to know and teach in order to provice moral knowledge.”50
Grosseteste then turns back and examines the application of the
Quadrivium to Philosophia naturalis. Again, he emphasises Music, and its
role in health care of body and mind. Astronomy helps us with
agriculture. And it helps with the choice of times in alchemy. Above
all, it helps in Medicine. And here, Grosseteste emphasises the need

Hackett (Toronto Ph.D. 1983), 281: Considerandum oportet igitur certificari omnino
per veritatem experientiae.
46 Ibid., 291.
47 Ibid., 330-32.
48 See Jeremiah Hackett, “Scientia experimentalis: From Robert Grosseteste to
Roger Bacon”, art. cit., 113-119.
49 De artibus liberalibus, ed. Baur, Die philosophischen Werke, 1-6. 51 Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, ed. Joseph Martin, (Aurelii Augustini Opera,
50 Ibid., 4. pars IV, 1: Turnholt, 1962) [Corpus Christianorum Series Latina].
 4. RO GER BACON AND GRAMMAR

Irene Rosier-Catach

Knowledge of languages is the first gateway to

wisdom, especially for the Latins, who possess no
theological or philosophical texts other than those
composed in a foreign tongue. For that reason,
everyone ought to know languages, needs to study
them and understand their science. One cannot
come to know them by natural means, because they
are dependent on persons’ pleasure and they vary
according to their will.1

For Roger Bacon, grammar does not have one single meaning, much
less a meaning coinciding exacdy with that given the word by his
contemporaries. For him, the discipline starts with the elementary
teaching of Latin, goes on to the reasoned grammar such as is taught at
the university, to culminate with the knowledge of languages, a term
which includes the wisdom languages as situated within the diachronical
perspective of the translatio linguarum, the science of signs and the
debates on the magical power of the spoken word. The Summa
grammatica distinguishes itself from later works in that it is typically a
product of the Faculty of Arts circa 1245, being based on argumen­
tative reasoning and on both grammatical and philosophical sources.
The knowledge of languages to which Bacon will devote himself begin­
ning in the years 1267-8 was in no way a university discipline.
Knowledge is extolled not just of one language, but of the wisdom
languages as a whole. Located within the project of a renovation of
learning in general, knowledge of languages is viewed as propaedeutic
to sapientia as a whole, whether sacred or profane, with the aim of
accomplishing practical goals, first among which is the preaching of

1 Op. tert., ed. Brewer, ch. xxvii, 102: Notitia linguarum est prima porta sapientiae,
et maxime apud Latinos, qui non habent textum theologiae, nec philosophiae, nisi
a linguis alienis; et ideo omnis homo deberet scire linguas, et indiget studio et doctrina
harum, eo quod non potest ea cognoscere naturaliter, quia fiunt ad placitum hominis,
et variantur secundum hominum voluntatem.
Note: The body of the text was translated by D.C. Miller. It was edited/reviewed
by Jeremiah Hackett. The latter, with the advice of D.C. Miller, translated and
edited the notes.
68 IRENE ROSIER-CATAGH
the word “to the faithful or the infidel, to the clergy or the laity”
(Op. tert., ch. lxxv, 303). These practical goals necessitate the knowl­
edge of both the nature and the functioning of language as a semiotic
system which is instituted by persons and subject to change accord­
ing to their will; and of the spoken word as natural and physical
phenomenon, inscribed in the networks of multiple causalities, deter­
mining effectiveness and effect.
1. The Summa grammatica
The Summa grammatica of Roger Bacon is a treatise typical of the
teaching at the University of Paris in the years 1240-50. Like others
of the same genre, this Summa constitutes a systematic exposition of
the principle points of syntax using “sophisms”, that is, examples chosen
to illustrate the points set out in the form of the disputatio.2 These
Summae were intended to complete the Commentaries on Priscian pre­
scribed by the university statutes— and more particularly, in our case,
what was called Priscian Minor, that is, books xvii—xviii of the Institutiones
grammatical of Priscian—with the presentation in logical form of some
subject found haphazardly in the original text. Bacon’s Summa is a
confirmation of the supplementary role played by the commentaries
on Priscian and by the collections of sophisms. Bacon in fact drew
fully and literally from one of the most famous commentaries of his
time and of the 13th century as a whole, namely, that of his contem­
porary, Robert Kilwardby.3 Bacon’s Summa grammatica belongs to a
genre quite typically known as speculative grammar such as it was de­
veloped at the University of Paris in the first half of the 13th century,
culminating in the treatises De modis significandi in the second half of
the century. It is clear that Bacon’s grammar does not comply with
the requirements of an elementary grammar such as Bacon himself
defines the genre (cf. below, par. 5), in part because it appeals to
notions borrowed from disciplines appearing in the syllabus subsequent
to this elementary teaching; and partly because Bacon’s grammar is
located within the context of an investigation of the causes or rationes
of language. The Summa opens, as is the case with other summations
of contemporary sophisms, with some general questions. The first set
2 See I. Rosier, “Les sophismes gramm aticaux. . 1 8 8 - 1 9 7 .
3 See C.H. Kneepkens, “Roger Bacon . . A. de Libera & I. Rosier, “Intention
de signifier. . . . ”
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 69
are addressed to the principles behind the most common construction,
subject and verb; and secondly, the principles behind figurative con­
structions, in the case of which it is important to show that although
these constructions infringe against the general rules, they represent
nonetheless, secundum quid, a certain kind of correction which renders
them acceptable. This second set of questions constitutes in fact
an amplification of the “general” (in generali) principles governing the
analysis of the figurative constructions, all of which will be completed
by a “specific” (in speciali) exposition on each of the five figures of
construction (antithesis, synthesis, prolepsis, syllepsis, and zeugma).
This amplification in generali is a partial repetition, quite literally so
for some of the arguments, of the introduction to the section on
figures in Robert Kilwardby’s commentary (Institutiones grammaticae, xvii,
153).4 In a second part of the Summa, it will be the non-figurative
constructions which are addressed, posing as they do a special difficulty
(impersonals, gerundives, ablative absolutes, interjections). In a third
section (S.G., 119fT.) Bacon goes on to analyse a certain number of
examples, without their appearing particularly ordered with regard
to treatment of subject-matter. Some of them are quite cursory, for
they draw back from difficulties previously grappled with; others receive
more extensive treatment, within the typical structure of the disputed
question. For the most part these are sophisms to be found elsewhere
in other collections. Finally, in the last section (S.G., 15ff.), there is
an analysis, albeit quite cursory, of a collection of short sentences,
including most notably adverbial constructions (e.g. lupus est in fabula),
and also—and this is somewhat rare—liturgical formulae (In nomine
patris et Jilii et spiritu sancti; ita missa est), which present problems be­
cause of their elliptical character.
A characteristic feature of the method of the speculative grammar­
ians is that the reasoning leans systematically on the Physka of Aristotle.
This parallel between grammar and physics is justified by the adage
“art imitates nature to the extent that it can” (Phys. II, 219 4a 21;
S.G., 35:4). It is difficult to determine to whom the paternity of the
introduction of this method should be attributed, evident from the
first half of the 13th century as attested by the famous Student’s Guide
in MS. Ripoll 109.5 Whatever the case, the elements which we will
4 O n Kilwardby’s theory of figures, see M. Sirridge, “Robert Kilwardby.. . .”
This is used by Bacon and by many contemporaries. See I. Rosier, La parole. . .,
ch. 1, with sources and cited bibliography.
5 See C. Lafleur (with assistance of Joanne Carrier), Le “Guide de I’etudiant” d’un
 70 IRENE ROSIER-GATACH
present, beginning with the Summa are not unique to Bacon, and pre­
liminary investigation reveals that they are to be found for the most
part in Robert Kilwardby. It is in Kilwardby that one encounters
notably the idea that the opposition between the permanent and the
successive grounds the distinction between the noun (and the pronoun)
and the verb (and the participle), an idea which is explicitly claimed
as a borrowing from Averroes (Phys. v, ch. 9) by later authors.6 Bacon
puts these oppositions to good use (S.G., 126). But given the aim of
his treatise, he exploits them less within the context of the definition
of grammatical category (cf. S.G., 148) than within the analysis of
syntactical function. The construction of words is conceived as a move­
ment.7 The verb, the pivot of the sentence, signifies action and move­
ment and needs for that reason two terms, a terminus a quo or principium
and a terminus ad quern or terminus (S.G., 65, 78). On one level, physical
conceptualization is used to re-define certain notions. Cases are prop­
erties allowing an expression to function as a term of movement (S.G.,
34); in this way the accusative expresses the terminus ad quem. At a
second level, Bacon’s conceptualization allows him to state some very
general rules for the combination of categories. For example, begin­
ning with the premise that “nothing which is in movement can come
to rest in something in movement, no movement being able to com­
plete itself in something in movement” (nullus jluens terminatur adJiuens
nec motus ad motum), Bacon deduces the argument that neither the par­
ticiple nor the infinitive, by their verbal signification, have a sufficiently
“stable” character to be a term of movement and thus, linguistically,
to occupy the function of the subject (S.G., 60, 62). Similarly, a phe­
nomenon as simple as grammatical agreement raises difficulties in
respect of the principle that “the action is in the patient as in a
subject” (S.G., 10, 151). One might ask therefore why the verb does
not take its number according to its relation to this “subject”, which
grammatically is the object in the oblique case, rather than with its
maitre anonyme de la faculte des arts de Paris au xiiie siecle, ed. critique provisoire (Laval,
Faculte de Philosophic, 1992); see I. Rosier, “La grammaire dans le Guide de I’etudiant,”
in L ’enseignement de la phihsophie au x iti siecle: Autour du “Guide de I’etudiant” du ms. Ripoll
109, ed. C. Lafleur (Leiden: E.J. Brill, in preparation).
6 See for example, Siger of Courtrai, Summa modorum significandi, ed. J. Pinborg
(Amsterdam, John Benjamins, 1977); Siger’s reference to Averroes (p. 56) is an almost
literal summary of a passage from the commentary on the Physica, v, ch. 9, ed. 1552,
f. 125ra, cited in the introduction to the edition, ibid., xvii.
7 S.G., 124:18, constructio sit quidam motus et operacio racionis.
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 71
“grammatical” subject. Finally, the organizing principle for the com­
bination of terms is the notion of dependencia: “every combination of
words is a natural relation of dependence” (S.G., 52). This relation
traces the natural dependence between the accidental with regard to
its subject (S.G., 134), of which the linguistic prototype is the con­
struction of the adjective with its substantive (S.G., 143).
At yet a third level, these physical principles define a mode of
argumentation which rests on a physico-grammatical parallel, legiti­
mate in itself since it is by beginning with nature that grammar defines
its own principles (S.G., 151). However, the grammarian needs con­
stantly to define the limits of this parallelism: the fact that here one
deals with operations of reason and not operations of nature makes
in effect for divergence in function. It is only in quantum potest, Bacon
reminds us, that art imitates nature, not in any absolute way. Let us
take for example the figure urbern quem statuo vestra est (the city which
I found is yours) (S.G., 33). The incorrectness comes from the fact
that the subject is in the accusative. The “physical” analysis is devel­
oped into a syllogism: “everything which brings movement to an end
is something fixed; no accusative is ever something fixed; therefore,
the accusative cannot be the subject”. The accusative cannot “termi­
nate the movement of the verb”, because it expresses, as does every
oblique case, the property of “dependency”, which is contrary to
that of “fixity” or “stability” necessary for a word to be a term of
movement. This construction could be validated by an argument
drawn from the comparison with other types of movement, whose
terms can be inversed, such as the movement of location (one can
go from Athens to Thebes or vice versa) or the movement in gen­
eration (fire becomes air and air becomes fire). In this way, it would
be possible to account for the fact that the accusative which properly
expresses the terminus ad quem can also function as the terminus a quo
(,S.G., 39:15-20). But this argument is invalid, for in movement in
nature the fact of being terminus a quo or ad quem is accidental (it is
accidental for Thebes to be either point of arrival or point of departure
as to local movement). However, in arte, things are different. It is essen­
tial for words in a construction to have one function or another (S.G.,
40:29-41:5). The legitimacy of the construction is susceptible to differ­
ent proof: there exists in the accusative an element of independence
and fixity which comes not from the fact that it is an oblique case but
from the thing that it signifies, which allows it to be a principle of
movement (S.G., 39:15-20). It is for this reason that the subject can
 72 IRENE ROSIER-CATACH
be in the accusative in infinitive propositions (S.G., 39:14—40:3).
Traditional grammatical reasoning is thus paralleled not only with
arguments borrowed from the physical world but equally with argu­
ments drawn from logic. Nevertheless, the logica consideratio is often
different from the grammatica consideratio. The construction est dies nicely
illustrates the way in which what is strictly grammatical analysis is to
be located between the two models, physical and logical, which appar­
ently dominate it. This expression raises difficulties: why is there only
one term and not two; and what is the function of dies? In every
movement in fact, as in every dimension (for example a line), the
two terms need to be distinct, not only secundum rationem but also
secundum substantiam (S.G., 124:20—31). The comparison does not hold
in any absolute way, precisely because what is under consideration
here is an operation of reason, whereby reason can discern a diver­
sity where in reality there is an identity. With regard to the present
example, reason can quite easily distinguish in the one term dies the
two functions which are necessarily present in every assertion (S.G.,
127:33-128:9). Moreover, logic requires that the subjectum be different
from the predicatum. But grammar, Bacon says, is a “positive science”
which introduces the element of “will”, whereas logic depends on
“intellect and on reason”. And so the grammarian is able to distin­
guish different functions within the one term (the ratio supponentis and
the ratio specificantis) whereas the logician will require that these func­
tions materialize in two actually distinct terms secundum substantiam
0S.G., 128:10-21).
Let it be noted that this grammatical reasoning leans on principles
borrowed from other parts of the philosophical register. For example,
beginning with the idea that the intellect proceeds from the better
known to the less known, one might argue that the order of terms in
the appositive construction should be homo animal rather than animal
homo. But Bacon chooses the opposite solution, on the principle of
Avicenna that the intellect proceeds regularly from what is more con­
fused to what is more specific (S.G., 46-47). As we have said, the var­
ious elements which we have just described are not unique to Bacon
and they are to be found in most of the University production of
the 13th century. Those elements which we are now going to high­
light are the concern of only one part of his output, representing a
tendency among the grammarians which one might term Intentionalist.8
See I. Rosier, La parole. .. .
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 73
For these latter, the “reasons” one assigns to linguistic constructions
cannot be mechanically deduced from an application of their rules,
for they are dependent also on the will or more exactly the signifying
intention on the part of the speaker (intentio proferentis). In the prelimi­
nary questions of the Summa, Roger Bacon refers to the principles of
intentionalist analysis such as had been identified by Robert Kilwardby
and such as one finds their application in numerous analogous texts,
most notably the Sophisms. The correctness of a statement does not
depend solely on its conformity with the rules of grammar but equally
on its adequateness with its signifying intention. Sometimes indeed,
because the speaker wishes to signify some precise idea, he may legiti­
mately distance himself from the normal rules. The proferens therefore
has the choice of whether or not to express his intention in linguis­
tic forms which conform to common usage. However, his liberty is
not an absolute one and deviations require some legitimate justifica­
tion. A figurative statement containing an “impropriety” needs, to
make it acceptable, a “reason which makes it possible” and a “rea­
son which makes it necessary” (S.G., 68, 133, 171, etc.). Likewise
with elliptical sentences such as liturgical formulae. Ita missa est, by
virtue of its elliptical character alone, is quite adequate: the fact that
no attribute is expressed constitutes a semantic richness, since the
phrase contains potentially all these attributes which could be added,
cantata for example, or dicta etc., all of which allow the formula to be
applied in diverse circumstances. The rule-governed nature of lan­
guage functions is to be found not only in common usage but also
in those “authorized” variations. It is precisely this principle which
Bacon will put to work at the semantic level when he conducts his
analysis of signs. Beyond the ordinary usage of the sign, derivable
from its institution, the speaker always has the liberty to use it in the
translated way, the variation being in the majority of cases explainable
and for this reason comprehensible by the listener. In the case of
figurative constructions and of metaphorical meanings the variation
arises from the signifying intention of the speaker. It is the speaker
who, knowing the rules of language, can decide consciously and
knowingly to exempt himself from the rules, for the sake of some
particular signifying intention, thus adapting the intelkctus significatus
to the intelkctus intentus. As Bacon puts it nicely elsewhere, it is not
the sign which signifies but rather the speaker by means of the lan­
guage—in the same way that it is not the stick which hits but he
who uses it. In other words, language is for man an instrument, a
 74 IRENE ROSIER-CATACH
means.9 This voluntarist conception is to be seen likewise in the context
of Bacon’s treatment of the magical power of words.101
2. The Third Part of the Opus maius
The third part of the Opus maius has as its object “language or
grammatical usage in three languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin”
(ed. Bridges, Vol. Ill, 80ff.).u Bacon gives a summary in the Opus
tertium (ed. Brewer, 88ff.). It contains three sections which we will
present first of all briefly, while later dealing in greater detail with
some of his particularly original treatments.
2.1 The first section {Opus maius, ch. i-x; Op. tert. xxv) is dedicated
to the knowledge of languages such as is useful to the sciences, both
secular and divine. In his other works such as the Grammaticagraeca
or the Compendium studii philosophiae, one finds very similar remarks on
Greek, Hebrew, etymology etc. This “science of Wisdom-Languages”
is the primary science, ignorance of which constitutes a factor impeding
knowledge. This science is placed alongside the science of Mathematics,
the science of Perspective, Alchemy, and the Experimental Sciences
(CSPh., 433).
This discipline has first of all as its goal the knowledge of wisdom
{propter studium sapientiae) {Opus maius, ch. xi, 115) and the reasons in
favor of this apprenticeship, eight in all, are enumerated in the first
section of the Opus maius, part three, and taken up again in the sum­
mary of the Opus tertium (ch. xxv), but in a different order.12
(1) Knowledge of languages is a requirement both in the religious
domain and in the philosophical domain because all the wisdom of
the Latins, Bacon says, has its origin in books written “in a foreign
9 Roger Bacon, Summa de sophismatibus et distinctionibus, ed. R. Steele, 153-154.
10 See below, par. 2.2.4.
11 The title of this third part varies from passages to passage: Scientia linguarum
sapientialium (CSPh., vi, 433); grammatica aliarum linguarum (Ibid., 438); de Unguis seu de
utilitate grammaticae (Op. tert., ch. xxv, 89; see also Opus maius, part three, ed. Bridges,
Vol. Ill, 81, n. 1); tractatus de Unguis (Op. min., 325); grammatica secundum linguas diversas
(Communia naturalium, liber primus, ed. Steele, fasc. ii, 1). [NOTE: All reference to the
Opus maius with the exception of part seven, the Philosophia moralis is to the Bridges’
edition. It will be cited as follows: (1) Title: Opus maius; (2) Part i.e. Part one; (3)
Volume, i.e. Vol. Ill; (4) Page no. The reason for this is that Bridges published a
supplementary volume (= Vol. Ill) in which is found a better text for parts one, two
and three. The citations for these parts are always from Vol. III. The name “Bridges”
will not be repeated in the citations.]
12 The list in CSPh. has thirteen reasons. See Ibid., ch. vi, 425ff.
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 75
language.” For that reason, it is necessary to know the languages in
which this wisdom was originally written down {Opus maius, part three,
ch. i, 80; Op. tert. ch. xxv, 89; CSPh., ch. viii, 473ff). The Latins, he
insists time and again, “did not write one original text, either in
theology or in philosophy,” with the exception of Law {CSPh., ch.
viii, 465). (2) To understand the original texts, which cannot be ade­
quately translated because of the poverty of the Latin language and
because of the impossibility of rendering in another language the
“genius” (proprietas) of the source language (Ibid., 81; CSPh., ch. viii,
466). (3) To know exactly what the translated texts talk about, and
then it is a question of also knowing the sciences which these texts
treat of (Ibid. 82; CSPh., ch. viii, 466). (4) To be able to read the
texts, religious or philosophical, which have not been translated, a
knowledge of which would be most useful (Ibid., ch. ii, 84). (5) To
show oneself a worthy “son and successor” of the ancient thinkers,
whether those of Antiquity itself or Antiqui of the present century
such as Robert Grosseteste who have a good knowledge of different
languages and who do not hesitate to use foreign expressions (Ibid.,
ch. iii, 89; CSPh., ch. vi, 435). (6) To be able to correct the mistakes
which .are present in the books of theology or philosophy with regard
to letter and meaning (Ibid., ch. iv-v, 94). (7) To understand the
meaning and the correct interpretation of words, both in Theology
and Philosophy (Ibid., vi, 101). (8) Because Latin and Latin grammar
come from Greek and Hebrew (Ibid.,'ch. vi-x, 105).
2.2 The second section has as its aim the knowledge of languages
in so far as it can be useful in the “Church of God and the Republic
of the Faithful” (Opus maius, part three, 115). But here the summary
of the Opus tertium (ch. xxvi, 85) does not coincide exactly with treat­
ment in the Opus maius, which suggests either some missing sections
or a reorganization of the material.
2.2.1 In the first place, Bacon enumerates the practical reasons
for a knowledge of languages such that it is concerned with the func­
tion of the Church (Opus maius, part three, ch. xvi). Bacon presents
four applications: (1) For the divine offices in which one uses words
from the Greek, Hebrew and Chaldean (Opus maius, part three, ch.
xv, 115; cf. Op. tert., ch. lxxi, 275ff). (2) For the collation of the
sacraments. In these two cases there are priests (and sometimes even
Bishops!) who neither know the origin nor the meaning of the words
in the ritual, pronouncing them like magpies or parrots, without either
knowing the exact meaning or the correct pronunciation and without,
as a result, being able to supply their ennunciation with the required
 76 IRENE ROSIER-GATAGH
appropriate intention (Opus maius, part three, ch. xi, 116-177).13
(3) To be able to preach to other peoples in their mother tongue,
which is the only way to achieve a sincere adherence (Opus maius,
part three, ch. xi, 118). (4) The fourth reason invokes a certain Liber
de seminibus scripturarum, likewise mentioned in the Opus tertium. This is
a work composed in 1204/5 of uncertain attrribution, in which one
finds deliberations on the Apocalypse and the period of decadence
which is to come. These thoughts lead the author to defend the im­
portance of reframing knowledge and the necessity of converting the
Jews and the Gentiles. We might note that the author seeks to explain
history, both future and past, with the help of a method which asso­
ciates a particular century to each of the letters of the cross in three
different languages, according to the characteristics of these letters.
Bacon makes direct reference to this method when he talks about
“the power of letters” (Opus maius, part three, ch. civ, 128; Op. tert.,
ch. xxvi, 95; cf. below par. 2.2.4). The association presented in De
seminibus between the Apocalypse, the struggle against the Antichrist
and the Infidel and the reform of knowledge most certainly consti­
tuted for Bacon an important source of inspiration.14
2.2.2 In the second place, Bacon indicates three practical justifi­
cations for the learning of languages, concerning the relation of the
church with other peoples: (1) the demands of trade and the fraud
which results from having recourse to interpreters {Opus maius, part
three, Vol. Ill, ch. xii, 119) (2) disputes that missionary brothers can
run into with the judiciary of these foreign countries {ibid. p. 12);
(3) the negotiation of peace treaties {Ibid.).
2.2.3 Bacon sets out, in the third place, the usefulness of the
knowledge of languages for the conversion of Infidels “the whole world
over.” The Jews, the Saracens, Pagans and Schismatics would easily
be persuaded of our Faith, Bacon says, if the preachers could present
it in their foreign language rather than having recourse to violence
and war {Opus maius, part three, Vol. Ill, 120-122). Roger Bacon
picks up here on the preoccupations of the Preaching Friars, such as
Humbert of Romans who, as early as 1255, recommended the study
of languages to advance the spread of Christianity; and of Raymond
of Penafort, whose efforts contributed to the founding of the studia
linguarum, the first being the one he set up in Tunis in 1250 for the
13 O n this point, see also Greek Grammar, 25, 81, 83, 195; CSPh., ch. ii, 413.
14 E. Randolph Daniel, “Roger B acon.. . . ”
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 77
teaching of Arabic. Bacon’s own colleague, Raymond Lull, was striv­
ing towards the same ends, giving permission for the institution of a
Franciscan Studium for Arabic at Miramar on the island of Majorca
in the year 1270.15
2.2.4 Finally, still working from the premise of the “pacific” con­
version of the Infidel on “the paths of wisdom,”16 Bacon invokes the
“power of letters” and the “power of words” for the refutation of
their beliefs. We have already identified a source of his reflections on
the “power of letters” {supra 2.2.1.). He takes up the theme of the
“power of words” in a somewhat detailed manner in the summary
of the Opus minus, whereas its treatment is very brief in the Opus
maius (part three, Vol. Ill, ch. xxiv, 124—25). By contrast, the theme
reappears in the Opus maius, part four, in the section on astrology,
where it finds a natural home in the middle of the reflections on the
influence of the workings of nature (including the faculty of the human
will) on the actions of men {Opus maius, part four, Vol. 1, 395-396
and 398-399). One supposes that Bacon chose to treat this question
of the power of words first of all in his chapters on astrology and
that secondarily he wished to bring together everything connected
with language, integrating in this way in the second section his re­
flections on the power of words. Thus one finds in the Epistola de
secretis operibus artis et naturae et de militate magiae (ch. ii-iii) a parallel
treatment in which the power of words is viewed in connection with
diverse magical practices such as incantations.
We will restrict ourselves in this connection to two remarks.17*For
Bacon the efficacy of the spoken word is thought of in the manner
of a physical process. The word in fact, in so far as it is made up of
different elements which confer on it its value, acts on the listener by
way of a multiplicatio specierum analogous to the process operating in
human sight. Certain elements are themselves of the natural order—
the conjunction of the stars, the disposition of the body of the
speaker—but others are dependent on the speaker’s mental disposi­
tion. Words pronounced with “a definite intention, firm resolution,
strong conviction” will be all the more effective {Opus maius, part
15 See G. Dahan, I. Rosier, L. Valente, “L’arabe .. 275ff.; G. Dahan, “Les
intellectuels . . .,” 258-63.
16 See also on this theme CSPh., 395.
17 See E. Massa, Ruggero Bacone, ch. xiii; I. Rosier, La parole. .., ch. 6 and bibl.;
On Roger Bacon and Magic, see M.M. Pattison Muir, “Roger Bacon: His relations
to Alchemy and Chemistry,” and A.G. Molland, “Roger Bacon as Magician.”
 78
IRENE ROSIER-CATAGH
four, Vol. I, 399; Ibid., part three, Vol. Ill, ch. xiv, 124-125; Op. tert.
ch. xxvi, 96). This thinking is the extension of an idea of Avicenna’s
which Bacon in the context of languages raises to the level of a maxim,
viz. that “nature will sometimes obey the thoughts (cogitationes) of the
soul” (De Animalibus, VIII, 7, Opera philosophica, ed. Venise 1508). But
our Doctor seems to draw inspiration from another source as well,
viz. the De radiis of Al-Kindi, where one finds a long exposition on
the functioning of the virtus verborum which likewise treats of physical
and mental conditions, these latter being as with Bacon conviction
and will (desire).18 Additionally, the fact that Bacon, at the point of
drawing up his summary in the Opus tertium “extracts” from his chapter
on astrology (Opus maius, part four) these sections on the power of
words seems significant. It shows in fact that for Bacon it is a ques­
tion of finding one more weapon for the battle he wishes to join
with the Infidel, a weapon which will render redundant wars and
violence and which he thus places on the same level as persuasio, of
the rhetorical order, expounded upon not only in these same pas­
sages in the Opus maius, part three, but also in the Philosophia moralis,
which constitutes the final part of the Opus maius. In both these cases
the effectiveness of the spoken words depends in part on the will of
the speaker. Bacon is at pains in fact not to conceive of this treat­
ment on the virtus verborum as being the same as certain dubious magical
practices. This virtus does not act in any mechanical way. It rests, as
we have said, not only on the will and the intention of the speaker
but above all on the “inciting” effect that words have when they are
pronounced. “The will can not be constrained,” our author repeats
time and again, thus taking issue with the “fakes” or “fake math­
ematicians” who posit a necessity to all these practices.19 Bacon thus
avoids the charge of determinism which befell Al-Kindi.20
2.3 The third section is missing from Bridges’ edition, but the
summary in the Opus tertium (ch. xxvii) gives the contents in detail.
Bacon is dealing with a part of grammar he says did not exist with
the Romans and which is extremely useful “in the service of the
research and understanding of speculative truths in philosophy and
18 Alkindi, De radiis, ed. M.T. d’Alvemy & F. Hudry, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinak et
Litteraire du Moyen Age, 41 (1974-75), 139-260; See ch. 5, 232-33 and I. Rosier, La
parok. .., ch. 6.2.
19 See for example Opus maius, part four, Vol. I, 393.
20 See Giles of Rome, Errores philosophorum, ed. Joseph Koch (1944); See I. Rosier,
La parok . . ., ch. 6.3.
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 79
theology.” “It is of importance for the composition of languages, the
giving of names and for the manner in which names signify through
their being given and in diverse other ways” (Op. tert., ch. xxvii,
p. 100). Bacon insists greatly on the originality of this third section.
He asserts that this science of languages was not formulated by the
Latins, and above all that this science has not yet been translated.
What might be then this foreign source which could have given Bacon
his inspiration? He himself identifies the source in a much earlier
work, his commentary on Metaphy. V, written ca. 1240-47. There he
raises the question, which in time will become a favorite of the Modists,
whether it is in the province of the grammarian or the metaphysician
to give names to things. After asserting first of all that the grammar­
ian can only consider names which have already been established, so
as to posit the rules behind their formation, he goes on to mention
the opinion of others who maintain that there does exist a a science of
languages and idioms, adding, however, that “we do not possess it.”21
The parallel with the passage in the Opus tertium is obvious. In the
commentary on Metaph., Bacon clearly identifies his source, viz. the
De divisione scientiarum.22 Al-Farabi in the De ortu scientiarum which is
attributed to him mentions in fact that the primary science is the
“science of language, that is the giving of names to things,” a science
which is anterior to grammar, logic, and poetics.23 This presentation,
which paves the way for a breaking with the traditional exposition of
the trivium is also to be found in an introduction to philosophy con­
temporary with Bacon’s commentary, a treatise entitled Philosophica
disciplina (ca. 1245), which mentions, as with Al-Farabi and Bacon,
the relationship of reciprocal subordination obtaining between the
“science of language” and “grammar.”24
21 Quaestiones supra libros prime Phihsophk Aristoklis, ed. Steele, 97, (11. 24-8): ideo
dico quod gramaticus non habet considerare impositiones nominum set solum modum
rectificandi et regulandi et formandi illas impositas. Alii dicunt quod est alia que est
scientia lingue et ydyomatum, et subaltemat sibi gramaticam, et subaltematur ei, set
illam non habemus. Et tunc dicendum quod gramatici, communiter loquendo, est
imponere nomina, non metaphysici. And again, further below, 11. 37-8: Set de ista
non audivimus nec vidimus aliquid.
22 Ibid., 97:33-38.
23 Al-Farabi, De ortu scientiarum, 2, ed. C. Baeumker, Aljarabi. Ueber den Ursprung der
Wissenschaften, (BGPM xix, 3; Munster 1916), 22 (11. 8-10): primum principium omnium
scientiarum est scientia de lingua, id est de impositione nominum rebus, scilicet
substantiae et accidenti.
24 Philosophica disciplina, ed. Lafleur, Quatre introductions a la phihsophk au X IIP suck,
(Montreal: Institut d’Etudes Medievales Paris: Vrin, 1988), 11. 317-333: .. . Secundum
vero Alfarabium additur quinta, que est scientia lingue, que est de impositione
80 IRENE ROSIER-CATACH
Bacon gives a detailed description of the contents of this third
section. It deals with signs and signification, natural and conventional,
as a whole; then with questions of signification which are of interest
to theology—the question of divine names, the relationship between
literal sense and spiritual sense, the “typological” relationship which
connects the Old to the New Testament, sacrament as sign, the giv­
ing of names by Adam, the original language which infants left to
themselves in the desert would speak. A part of the corresponding
section in the Opus maius, part three has been found as a separate
entity, viz. the De signis, dealing with everything concerning signs in
general, a subject taken up later by the Compendium studii theologiae
written by Bacon right at the end of his life (1292). The section on
the application of these considerations to theology is missing in both
works. It is possible that the analysis of signs in general, containing
numerous discussions of interest to logicians, such as the debate on
univocity (cf. Chapter below by Alain de Libera) has been detached
from those only of interest to theologians. It should also be noted
that the Ms. Oxford Digby 55 which conserves De signis contains for
nominum. Set, quia ista et poetica sunt valde annexe gramatice, ideo communiter
loquendo continentur sub grammatica. Distinguntur tamen ab ea sicut subaltemans
et subaltemata, ut dicit Alpharabius. Nam scientia lingue primo est, secundo gramatica,
tertio poetica, quarto rhetorica, quinto logica. Istius autem divisionis sic patet
sufficientia: quia oportet rebus nomina imponere, et hoc fit per scientiam lingue;
secundo, recte ordinare et componere . .. et hoc docet gramatica; deinde debet sermo
delectare . . . et hoc fit per poeticam . . . deinde est sermo ad hoc quod persuadeat.. .
et hoc docet retorica, quinto fidem debet facere ut proferenti credatur, et hoc fit per
logicam.
This “science of language” is here a source of confusion, because of two distinct
Arabic sources from which it arises: (1) It is the general name under which Al-Farabi
followed by Gundisallinus, orders the seven linguistic disciplines in their De scientiis:
elsewhere, they assign five parts to Logic: demonstration, topica, sophistica, rhetorica, poetica
(Liber Alfarabii de scientiis, ed. A. Gonzalez Palencia, Alfarabi, Catalogo de las Sciencias
(Madrid, 1932), 122, 137; Dominicus Gundisallinus, De scientiis, ed. P. Manuel Alonso
Alonso, (Madrid-Granada, 1954), 62, 72); (2) However, in the De ortu scientiarum,
Al-Farabi makes linguistic science to be one apart, preceding Grammar, Logic and
Poetics (De ortu scientiarum, ed. cit., ch. 2, 22). One will also note that according to
Algazel, the first part of Logic is that which is concerned with “the meaning of
words”; or in fact, it is concerned with three types of signification, such as that of
“concomitance” (for example roof in reference to wall), Ch. H. Lohr, ed., “Logica
Algazelis. Introduction and Critical Text,” Traditio 21 (1965), 223-90; (see 243-44).
These three modes are found already in the Logica of Avicenna (Avicenna, Opera
philosophica [Venice: 1508, rept. Louvain: 1961], f. 5va). Albert the Great repeats
this development in distinguishing five of these modes of signification (De predicabilibus,
tract. 1, ch. v, ed. Jammy (Lyons: 1651), 9). One should note the proximity here
with the analysis of connotation which Bacon will present in De signis which arises out
of this “science of language,” as he states in the precis in Opus tertium, and after­
wards in the Compendium studii theologiae.
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 81
the most part works on grammar, logic, and philosophy, and notably,
written in the same hand, anonymous Quaestiones on modi significandi and
the Syncategoremata of William of Sherwood.25 The fact that the same
manuscript also contains two graduation speeches for bachelors pre­
senting for the licentia docendi confirms the content of the collections
of texts gathered in this codex as belonging to the Arts faculty.26
Bacon insists on the originality and importance of this third section
of the Opus maius, part three; “it is a part of the science of grammar
which is in the highest degree necessary to theology, philosophy, wis­
dom in general.” He insists also that the section belongs to grammar
and on the fact that it was by way of this “grammatical” (grammatice)
mode that Augustine approached these questions, in the second and
third books of his De doctrina Christiana. It is worth noting that the
necessaria cognitio linguarum which Bacon states as the main aim of this
section is the exact wording used by Augustine to describe his own
work in the De doctrina ckristiana (1. Ill, xix, 40).
3. The Knowledge of Languages27
3.1 The Different Types of Languages
Bacon distinguishes three groups of languages.
(1) The “wisdom” languages, most often three in number, although
they come in two distinct groupings. The first is made up of the
three languages of the Gross, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, the three
languages of the Bible, expressing the “divine mysteries” (Opus maius,
part three, III, ch. xi, 119, ch. xiv, 125; Op. tert., ch. xxv, 88). These
three languages are often grouped together, notably in the Liber trighssos
25 See O. Lewry, “Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric”, in J.I. Catto (ed.), The Early
Oxford Schools (The History of the University of Oxford, vol. 1), Oxford, Clarendon
Press, 402-433, esp. 420.
26 See O. Lewry, “Four graduation speeches from Oxford manuscripts (c. 1270—
1310)”, Mediaeval studies 44, (1982), 138-180; see the description of the ms. pp. 141—
146, which is more complete than the one given by G.D. Macray, Catalogi codicum
manuscriptorum bibliothecae bodleianae pars nono, (Oxford, 1883). We can add that this
ms. also contains the Tractatus de grammatica of Pseudo-Grosseste (see infra), as long as
extracts from Aristotle’s Rhetoric (in Guillaume de Moerbeke’s translation).
27 Several studies, already dated but not yet surpassed, are devoted to this topic:
E. Nolan & S.A. Hirsch, The Greek Grammar. . ., Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1902, introduction; S.A. Hirsch, “Roger Bacon and Philology . . .”; Charles B.
Vandewalle, Roger Bacon .. ., and more recently, P. Bourgain, “Le sens de la langue. . . . ”
82 IRENE ROSIER-GATACH
of the Flemish Franciscan Gerard de Huy who probably had contact
with Bacon.28 The second grouping of three languages most often
mentioned joins Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic (to which latter is some­
times added “Chaldean”). These are the languages of philosophy.
For Bacon, all wisdom comes from God and has been revealed to
the faithful and the infidel alike. He takes up the theme of the franslatio
studii again, which he conceives as a franslatio philosophise. Philosophy
was given (transjusa) first of all by God to his saints, in Hebrew. Then
it was “renewed” by Aristotle in Greek, and subsequently in Arabic
most notably by Avicenna.29
(2) Latin has a unique place. It grounds the identity of the Latins,
that is the Christians of the west, a community both of knowledge
and of faith. Latin is not seen as a “foreign” language. Bacon even
describes it as a “mother tongue” (lingua matema latine), on the same
level as English and French (CSPh., ch. vi, 433). It is true that Dante
will take up the opposite position, because of the “artificial” nature
of Latin (De vulgaris ehquentia I). This depreciative judgment of Latin
comes from the fact that as a language it is in large part derived
from Greek, on three different grounds: first the language is derived
from Greek (O.G.G., 59; Opus maius, part three, ch. vi, 105-6) and from
Hebrew (CSPh., ch. vi, 441), whether it is a question of its letters or
vocabulary; second its grammar—the manner in which it has been
analysed (ratio tractandi), including the description of its letters, its parts
of speech—all of this was borrowed from the Greeks by Priscian
(Opus maius, part three, ch. vi, 105; CSPh., ch. vii, 402; ch. viii, 464-
5). Last and most important, nothing original has been written in
this language, which is merely a repository of “foreign” learning.
(3) A third group of languages has the feature in common of not
belonging to the first two groups. These are the languages which
Bacon often calls the “languages of the laity”—known at the time
as the “vulgar languages,”30 in distinction to the languages of leam-
28 See R. Weiss, Medieval and Humanistic.. ., 140.
29 Op. tert., ch. x, 32: Placuit autem Deo dare sapientiam cui voluit; nam omnis
sapientia a Domino Deo est; et ipse philosophis, tam infidelibus quam fidelibus,
earn revelavit; Ibid., ch. xxiv, 80-81.
30 See S. Lusignan, Parler vulgairement. . who cites many examples, most notably
Giles of Rome, 43-44; see also B. Bischoff, “The Study of Foreign Language in the
Middle Ages,” Speculum, 36 (1961), 209-224.
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 83
ing or as opposed to Latin, the “language of the clergy” (Op. tert.,
ch. xxviii, 103). With regard to the matter of preaching, these are the
optimal languages, for only he who knows how to talk to those he
wishes to convince in their “mother tongue” is able to obtain a sincere
and lasting conviction. By contrast, as far as learning is concerned,
these latter languages are quite deficient and incapable sometimes of
expressing knowledge because of the poverty of vocabulary. While it
is true that lay people have a natural logic of their own, it would still
be impossible to translate the science of logic into their language; in
this case it would be necessary to invent new words, rendering it
unintelligible except to the translator (Opus maius, part three, ch. I,
81; Op. tert., ch. xxv, 90, 103).31*These languages therefore are inferior
in rank to Latin which by distinction authorizes the translation of
the languages of learning. Bacon sometimes sets those lay languages
in opposition to Latin as “foreign languages” by way of deploring,
most notably, the fact that translators introduce words from their
own mother tongue into a Latin translation, when they do not know
the Latin word (Opus maius, part three, ch. I, 81-82; Op. tert., ch. xxv,
91; CSPh., ch. viii, 467).
Even if Bacon has a clear understanding of the historical evolu­
tion of languages, on the phonetic or semantic levels, he doesn’t seem
to distinguish between the written classical language, the liturgical
language, and the vernacular [spoken] language, when he puts on
the same level, while promoting the cognitio linguarum, scientific knowl­
edge on the one hand which entails the recourse to the original texts,
and the mission to the Infidel on the other, which demands knowl­
edge of the language as it is actively practiced. The rules he gives for
the pronunciation of Greek in the Grammatica graeca apply to the lan­
guage of his contemporaries, not the language of Aristotle.
3.2 Substantial Unity and Accidental Diversity
For Bacon there exist families of related languages. To be more exact,
one language which is one “substantially” diversifies itself “accidentally”
into different idiomata. Bacon thus constitutes groups of languages:
Greek, along with its best known idioms—Attic, Aeolian, Doric, Ionian
(O.G.G., 27); the gallicana language with Burgundian, Picardian,
31
See S. Lusignan, “Le L atin...
84 IRENE ROSIER-CATAGH
Norman, Parisian, Francian (gallicus) (O.G.G., 27; CSPh., ch. vii, 438
or 467); “Chaldean,” Hebrew and Syriac (CSPh., 438-439; ch. vi, 445).
On the section on geography in the Opus maius Bacon mentions as
well the sclavonica language spoken by different nations, Russian, Polish,
and Bohemian (Opus maius, part four, I, 360). As for Latin, which is
a language as related to Picardian, French, Provencal, or, as he says
elsewhere, to Spanish, Italian, French (O.G.G., 27), it is the same from
“the extremities of Apulia to the limits of Spain” (Op. tert., ch. xxv, 90).
Each idiom has its own distinctive characteristic (proprietas). The term
idiom, Bacon explains, from which the word idioma is derived, means
what is proper to something in Greek.32 Whence the word idiota,
designating precisely someone who contents himself with the proper­
ties of his own idiom without knowing other idioms (O.G.G., 26).
This proprietas, the genius proper to each language, makes literal trans­
lation impossible. What rings well in one language becomes ridicu­
lous in another; that which is well said in one language can never be
transfered to another while maintaining its unique properties. This
proprietas includes, beyond the vocabulary, the rhythmic and musical
characteristics which Bacon considers an integral part of a language.33
His criticisms with regard to bad translations, in the sacred and profane
domains, are numerous and virulent, and he does not baulk at citing
his contemporaries by name.34 The gravest consequence in his eyes
is the “corruption” of the Paris Vulgate, and his formula is well known:
“tot sunt lectores per mundum, tot sunt correctores, seu magis corrup-
tores” (Op. min., 330).
32 Op. tert., 90; O.G.G., 26-7; CSPh., 438-439, 468.
33 Opus maius, part three, I, 81; CSPh., ch. viii, 467; Op. tert., ch. xxv, 89-90 and
267: Sed translatores Latini non habuerunt illam musicae potestatem, quam
patriarchae et prophetae, qui omnes scientias adinvenerunt; et nimis difficile esset
ilia metra Hebraica et rhythmos Latino sermone secundum proprietatem eorum
explicari. Et ideo non remanserunt haec in textu Latinorum; Communia mathematica,
ed. Steele, 17-18: Cum igitur transferri non possit nisi per hominem qui metrorum
et rithmorum causas noverit. . .; On this issue of the translations, see G. Dahan,
I. Rosier, L. Valente, “L’arabe . . .”, par. 2 & bibliog.
34 Op. tert., ch. xxv, 91: Alii vero qui infinita quasi converterunt in Latinum ut
Gerardus Cremonensis, Michael Scotus, Alvredus Anglicus, Hermannus Alemannus
et translator Meinfredi nuper a domino regi Carolo devicti; hi praesumpserunt
innumerabilia transferre, sed nec scientias nec linguas sciverunt, etiam non Latinum.
Nam in locis quasi innumerabilibus ponunt linguam m aternam .. . . Et ideo isti male
et pessime transtulerunt, et conturbaverunt totam philosophiam per perversitatem
translationis. Et maxime libri Aristotelis sunt destructi per hoc, qui tamen aestimantur
in philosophia tenere principatum; nemo potest scire quid velit dicere, quia quod
unus dicit, alius negat; CSPh., ch. viii, 471-72, etc.
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 85
As the examples given demonstrate, for instance Greek, Bacon seems
in fact to think of the idiomata as dialects with regard to the mother
language. Sometimes, however, they are simply described as being
the manner proper to each nation of writing or pronouncing the
“tongue,” that is, the manner of “using” it. An especially clear passage
in the Grammatica Graeca, which associates the Italians, Spaniards,
French, Germans and the English, leaves no doubt on this matter
(O.G.G., 27). When he defines the substance of the Latin language as
being that “by which the clergy and the learned communicate” (O.G.G.,
26) he probably has in mind these variations in the use of Latin as
language of the learned which had been identified by grammarians
from the beginning of the twelth century at the latest.35 We should
note that exactly in the same period Thomas Aquinas is likewise
making the observation that different locutiones exist within the one
lingua; and if he cites the case of France, along with Burgundy and
Picardy, it is because he mixes, as does Bacon, two different ideas,
viz. linguistic kinship and variation in usage.36 It is easy to see the
intersection of philology and ideology, for it is essential to justify the
unity, both religious and cultural, of the Latins, above and beyond
the diversity of the spoken speech and nations. But Bacon’s reflec­
tions go further, in the fact that he considers different groupings of
languages. The “substance” of a language therefore is that which
guarantees the unity of a language beyond accidental differences which
are imputable to the variety of usage in accordance with the different
places where the language is spoken (CSPh., ch. vi, 438-439). Sub­
stance likewise is that which maintains identity in time, in spite of
phonetic or semantic variations.37*O n occasion Bacon indulges in a
veritable comparatist analysis: Latin transforms (mutat) e to an a, and
n to m, and so has malum (apple) for the Greek malon. But, says Bacon,
“this variation does not change the word in its substance or its root
(radix) because [the Latin word] is derived from the Greek although
it is pronounced differently” (Opus maius, part three, III, ch. 9, 112).
35 Cf. M. Fredborg, “Universal G ram m ar. . 75.
36 Thomas Aquinas, Lectura super Mattheum, (ed. Marietti, 1951), 26, 76, text cited
in S. Lusignan, Porter vulgairement. . ., 61: in eadem lingua saepe diversa locutio fit,
sicut patet in Francia et Picardia, et Burgundia, et tamen una loquela est. On this
issue of the substantial unity of languages, see Ibid.., 64ff, and E. Hovdhaugen, “Una
et eadem . . . ”, who opposes this idea and the “universal grammar” defended by the
grammarians of the University.
37 See O.G.G., 20: significata dictionum variantur apud homines secundum quod
tempora variantur.
86 IRENE ROSIER-CATACH
In exactly the same way, Dante will insist on the unity, at one geo­
graphic and historical, of Latin, an identity he calls grammatica, de­
picting it as an “inalterable identity of language” which is maintained
independently of the variations of time and place.38
The fact that languages are related explains that the derivative
character of Latin concerns both the spoken language and the gram­
mar. There is something substantially identical in the various spoken
languages as there is something substantially identical in the different
grammars (O.G.G., 26-27). This linguistic “substance” is revealed in
universal features common to all languages. Bacon says most notably
that in any language there can only be five vowels, whereby the “power
or the principal sound is identical, even although the accidental or
secondary sound may vary” (O.G.G., 3, cf. infra para. 5). It is these
accidental variations (aspiration, stress, length) which explain the fact
that the Greeks have more than five vowels (O.G.G., p. 4, 30), an
idea previously expressed more than a century earlier by William of
Conches.39 Bacon cites elsewhere the classic example of the article,
which the Modists will pick up on, albeit on a very different basis,
to demonstrate that grammar is eadem apud omnes. It is a part of speech
which exists in Greek, and indeed in most languages, notably in gallicus,
and if it doesn’t exist in Latin, one uses in its place the articularia
pronomina that is hie, haec, hoc (Opus maius, part three, Vol. Ill, ch. iii,
94; O.G.G., 14-15; Cambridge Hebrew Grammar, 207).
For Bacon, substantial identity and accidental diversity are two
inseparable elements, both equally important. The substantial identity
of languages legitimates the methodology of description borrowed
from Priscian, which compares Latin to Greek, and in this case also
to Hebrew. The diversity of each spoken language or dialect is none
other than the manifestation, on a linguistic level, of the variety of
mankind, in “their customs and their dispositions,” as a function of
place and climate. But above all this diversity derives for Bacon from
what is a fundamental feature of the use of language, viz. its ad placitum
character, which the De signis will examine in greater depth: each
nation has had to choose its linguistic means and has thus bestowed
the particular virtues and distinctive properties to its own language.
38 Dante, De vulgari eloquentia, I, 9, 11: grammatica nichil aliud est quam quedam
inalterabilis locutionis idemptitas diversis temporibus atque locis.
39 See M. Fredborg, “Universal G ram m ar. . .,” 75.
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 87
Voces enim sunt ad placitum in omni lingua, et ideo greci posuerunt
voces pro sua voluntate, sicut nos pro nostra et secundum racionem
nostre lingue sicut ipsi secundum racionem sue lingue (O.G.G., p. 164).
3.3 Instruments and Methods in the Analysis of Languages
Not to know the diversity of languages and their diachronic relation­
ships leads to innumerable errors in translation and interpretation.
The Latins, Bacon says, often do not know the origin of a word in
their language; they make up fantasy etymologies and ignore the
spelling and the pronunciation of borrowed words. Those respon­
sible foremost for such errors are the lexicographers, “Papias, Hugutio
et Brito,” et alii grammaticellae idiotae (CSPh., ch. vii, p. 447, p. 450).
Bacon seeks to remedy these deficiencies in several ways. In the first
place he produces descriptions of the languages “because it is neces­
sary for the Latins to have short useful treatments of those foreign
languages which they use” {Op. tert., ch. xxv, p. 88). It is well known
that the study of languages was particularly encouraged by Robert
Grosseteste who himself composed a short introduction in Greek in
the preface to his translation of the De divinis nominibus. According to
the testimony of Matthew Paris, John of Basingstoke wrote a Donatus
Graecus, a short introduction to grammar, with Greek and Latin ex­
amples.40 But Bacon’s Grammatica Graeca is the first of its kind in the
west. It seems to have been inspired by a Byzantine model and un­
dertakes a systematic comparison of Greek and Latin, following the
Institutiones of Priscian.41 Extant also are fragments of a Hebrew gram­
mar, mostly from the section on phonetics. As with his Greek gram­
mar, the treatments consists of a comparison with Latin.42*Although
he announces that he “will treat Arabic when the time comes,” we
40 See R. Weiss, “The Study of the Greek in England during the Fourteenth
Century,” Rinascimento 11, 209-39; rept. in R. Weiss, Medieval and H um anistic...,
80-107; E. Nolan & S.A. Hirsch, The Greek Grammar. .. , introd., xxxviiiff.; Vandewalle,
Roger Bacon . . ., 40-50. O n the study of Greek, see also M.W. Herren, ed. The Sacred
Nectar of the Greeks: The Study of Greek in the West in the Early Middle Ages, (London, 1988).
41 See S.A. Hirsch, “Roger Bacon and Philology,” 134ff.; Vandewalle, Roger
Bacon . .., 107ff.
42 O n this work, see S.A. Hirsch, “Roger Bacon and Philology . . . ”; on the knowl­
edge of Hebrew, see S.A. Hirsch, “Early English Hebraists: Roger Bacon and his
Predecessors,” Jewish Quarterly Review 12 (1899-1900), 34-88; rept. in A Book of Essays
(London, 1902), 1-72; S. Berger, Quam notitiam linguae hebraicae habuerint Christiani medii
aevi temporibus in Gallia, (Berger Levrault, 1893); G. Dahan, Les Intellectuels. . ., 239-
70, especially 253-54; and above all G. Dahan, “L’enseignement.. . .”
88 IRENE ROSIER-CATAGH
possess no grammar of this language, which Bacon acknowledged as
not having mastered to the point of knowing how to write it (Op. tert.,
ch. xxv, p. 88). In various parts of his Opera Bacon gives elements of
his description of Greek and Hebrew (Opus maius, part three, Vol. Ill,
ch. iii, 90—92; CSPh., ch. ix, 497ff.).43 It should be noted that accord­
ing to his own admission the Grammatica Graeca is no more than an
“introduction to the Greek language.” He would like to have written
a more elaborate version (maior tractatus) required “for the work of
translation, and the deeper knowledge of the Greek language” (O.G.G.,
pp. 171-172). He identifies three levels in the knowledge of languages:
the lower level is reached when one knows how to read the language
and when one has a minimum of knowledge of the grammar. The
middle level implies that one knows how to translate “into the Latin
mother tongue.” The highest level demands that one knows the lan­
guage “like one’s mother tongue,” and it is at this level that Bacon
himself knows English, French, and Latin. Bacon prides himself on
having acquired the highest level in Greek and Hebrew in thirty
years, but his level of competence which almost no one of his con­
temporaries could boast of having attained in his judgment, is not
necessary. Only knowledge at the lower level is deemed to be
indispensible and he offers to teach this level in three days to anyone
motivated enough (Op. tert., ch. xx, pp. 65-66; CSPh., pp. 433-434).
Additionally, Bacon seeks to help his contemporaries by giving them
lists of Greek and Hebrew words which have become Latin words,
so that the latter may be identified as such (CSPh., ch. vi-vii, p. 441
sq.) and that their pronunciation be correcdy established (O.G.G., p. 133
sq.). He would have liked to have done more, namely a glossary “of
all the Greek words used in Latin, arranged alphabetically” (O.G.G.,
p. 68), with indication of spelling, pronunciation, meaning (interpretatio)
and etymology (Opus maius, part three, Vol. Ill, ch. vi, 107). The
criticisms which he levels at contemporary lexicographers force him
to take up position on this terrain, through his demonstration that
the knowledge of languages is above all knowledge “of vocabulary.”
Finally, alongside this grammatical and lexicographical knowledge,
43 Ms Toulouse 302 contains a treatise on Greek and Hebrew, and it has often
been attributed to Bacon or one of his disciples without the question ever being
settled. See S. Berger, Quam notitiam. . ., op. cit., ch. iii, who quotes numerous ex­
tracts; S.A. Hirsch, “Roger Bacon and Philology”, 140-41; See Vandewalle, Roger
Bacon. . ., 104ff. for an analysis of the Grammatica graeca et its comparison with the
CSPh., 495-519.
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 89
Bacon proposes certain general principles on which every diachronic
analysis should be grounded. It is well known that lexicographers
from Isidore de Seville onwards had the habit of grouping under the
heading of etymobgy a number of practices aimed at explicating the
meaning of a word on the basis of its form, and these practices covered
the morphological processes of composition-derivation, as well as
various kinds of relationships, e.g. between syllables (cadaver quasi caro
data vermibus) or between letters (deus quasi dans etemam vitam suis), with
these relationships taking place either within the one language or
between two languages.44 Bacon gives a description of etymology in
terms which comply more with the modem understanding, while giving
a new meaning to the traditional definition verus serrno interpretationis
alicuius vocabuli (O.G.G., p. 62). Etymology is governed by five principles.
(1) The ordo linguarum. An earlier language is not to be explicated by
a later language, and here the authority of Jerome is invoked:4546“Greek
does not come from Latin, nor Hebrew from Greek, and so a Hebrew
etymology can not be taken from the Greek, anymore that a Greek
etymology from the Latin” (Opus maius, part three, Vol. Ill, ch. vii,
105-108; CSPh., ch. vii, 448). For example, amen is not to be inter­
preted with the two Greek morphemes, a, the privative, and mene,
“deficiency”, from which one gets the meaning “as if without fault”
(quasi sine defectu) (Opus maius, part three, Vol. Ill, ch. vi, 108; CSPh.,
452.). (2) Not all words have to be given an etymology. Certain words
are “purely Latin,” such as ave, and one must guard against confus­
ing derived with pure forms (Opus maius, part three, Vol. Ill, ch. vii,
108-9; CSPh., ch. vii, 451-52). (3) It is necessary that the derived
word and the word from which it is derived resemble one another
both in form and in meaning, this principle being clearly borrowed
from the deliberations of Logicians on paronymy, beginning with the
first Chapter of Aristode’s Categories,^ as is attested by the parallel
with the classic example of respublica, “which does not mean the same
thing when it is a composition as when it is a division [res + publica\.”
Thus Bacon criticises on various occasions the analysis of Israel as vir
videos Deum proposed as a composition of the elements Is - vir + ra
= videos + el = Deum (Opus maius, part three, Vol. Ill, ch. vi, 102;
CSPh, ch. vi, 435-36). In more general terms, this principle allows
44 See I. Rosier, “La grammatica practica. . . ” & Bibliography.
45 O n Bacon’s debt to St Jerome, see P. Lardet, “Un lecteur de Jerome . . .”
46 Cf. especially, the Summulae dialecticae of Roger Bacon (1), 187-88, par. 15-19.
 90 IRENE ROSIER-CATACH
Bacon to reject derivations without semantic proximity (cf. the example
of antiphrasis lucus [wood] as deriving from luceo [to shine]; or without
formal proximity (e.g. semel [once] from wins [one]). (4) It is important
to respect original spellings, and to be watchful of the fact that they
have been “varied” in time (Opus maius, part three, Vol. Ill, ch. viii,
109). Infractions against this principle are legion and induce multiple
confusions, for example between poly- (several) and poli(s) (city) (O.G.G.,
62); or between kenon (empty) and kainon (new), wrongly conflated in
the spelling cenon (CSPh., ch. vii, p. 457).
It is in the Compendium studii philosophiae that Bacon’s exposition on
languages is at its most detailed: taking his inspiration directly from
Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana, he seeks to untangle the difficulties
that Latin sets in the written texts, whether by rectifying the stress or
length of a vowel, or by clearing up semantic or syntactic ambigui­
ties, or by reestablishing good readings or correct pronunciation,
on the basis of the original sources (CSPh., ch. vii, p. 457).
This philological research, which would have been out of place in
the Faculty of Arts of the Middle Ages, finds its concrete application
in the establishing of the Corrections of the Bible and gives rise to new
descriptions of Greek and Hebrew. Bacon refers on numerous occa­
sions to this activity while establishing most notably a typology of
“errors” to be corrected, such as one finds with other writers, includ­
ing Gerard de Huy.47 His criticisms of his colleagues, Dominican or
Franciscan, often seem excessive, considering their actual practice.48
For a man of the thirteenth century like Bacon, knowledge in
matters religious or philosophical comes from books, with these books
being translations and often bad translations. Bacon demonstrates how
some central doctrinal questions which were causing a flurry at the
time the Opera were being written, such as the problem of the nature
of the agent intellect, were based on bad translations of Aristotle’s
text (Opus maius, part two, Vol. Ill, ch. v, 45-6; Op. tert., ch. xxiii,
78-9). One only has to compare different translations of the same
treatise of Aristotle to guage the extent of a scholar’s confusion in
this era confronted by these “authorities,” by the fluctuating letter
which it was his job to read, comment on, interpret.49 The situation
47 Opus maius, part three, Vol. Ill, ch. ix, 113ff.
48 See G. Dahan, “La critique textuelle dans les correctoires de la Bible du X III'
siecle,” in Langages et Philosophic. Hommage a J . Jolivet, ed. A. de Libera, D. Elamrani-
Jamal, A. Gallonier, (Paris: Vrin, 1997), pp. 365-392.
49 Cf. CSPh., ch. viii, 469: Certus igitur sum, quod melius esset Latinis, quod
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 91
was even more grave with Holy Scripture “which contains all wis­
dom” (Op. tert., ch. xxiv, p. 81: Tota sapientia concluditur in sacra Scriptura).
How could one, he often lamented, arrive at the “true” spiritual sense
when the letter contained so much “error and intolerable imprecision!”
(Opus minus, 349; Op. tert., ch. xxv, p. 93). Whereas in the area of
philosophy Bacon confined himself to critiques of principle, he strove
to propose corrections for the sacred texts. Thus one understands
how he wished to place his stringent method of textual criticism based
on the knowledge of languages at the very heart of his great project to
renew the state of knowledge.
4. Signs
Roger Bacon proposes an analysis of signs in the De signis, an unfin­
ished chapter of the Opus maius, part three which was independently
in circulation, and also in the Compendium studii theologiae, written right
at the end of his life. In contrast to the other sections of the Opus
maius, part three, this section, on signs, inserts itself largely into the
debates in the Faculty of Arts.50 O ur only consideration here is what
concerns the classification and the definition of the sign.
Commentators have remarked on how original this interest in the
notion of the sign was. It would need to be said, more exactly, that
it was indeed a mark of his originality especially if one considers the
tradition of the “artists” whose semantics were for the most part of
Aristotelian inspiration. And even with this qualification, such a judg­
ment needs to be careful. For it is indeed remarkable that Roger
Bacon’s contemporary Robert Kilwardby, whose influence with regard
to the Summa grammatica we have already noted, had already introduced
the notion of the “sign” (signuni) in his commentary on the famous
first chapter of Aristotle’s De interpretatione. Aristotle, he says, speaks of
“mark” (nota) for that which is in the mouth of the speaker and “sign”
(signum) for what is in the ear of the listener. Whereas for Boethius
sapientia Aristotelis non esset translata, quam tali obscuritatitate et perversitate tradita,
sicut eis qui ponuntur ibi triginta vel quadraginta annos; et quanto plus laborant,
tanto minus sciunt, sicut ego probavi in omnibus qui libris Aristotelis adhaeserunt. . . .
Si haberem potestatem super libros Aristotelis ego facerem omnes cremari, quia non
est nisi temporis amissio studere in illis, et causa erroris, et multiplicatio ignorantiae,
ultra id quod valeat explicari. . . .
50 Cf. Alain de Libera, in this volume.
 92 IRENE ROSIER-CATAGH
the “mark” was principally viewed in its relation to things and to the
“passions of the soul,” the notion of “sign” allows Bacon to introduce
a connection between speaker and listener. Kilwardby justifies this
distinction by citing a definition of the sign of Augustinian inspira­
tion: “the sign is that which offers itself to the senses while present­
ing something else to the intellect” (signum est quod se offert sensui, aliud
derelinquens intellectui) One comes across this definition now and again,
and the classification of signs which goes along with it, in several
texts on logic and grammar from the 1240’s on, most notably in the
Summa grammatica of our author.5152 One sees here the intervention of
Augustine into the domain of the Artists. With regard to sign theory,
his presence loomed large with the theologians in their writings on
the sacraments whereby they themselves placed Augustine alongside
Aristotle. This fact shows us the way towards research on Bacon’s
sources of inspiration, something we will do by examining the two
central elements of his analysis.
The first element concerns the definition of the sign.53 Bacon defines
the sign as “that which offered to the senses or the intellect desig­
nates something to that intellect” {signum est illud quod oblatum sensui vel
intellectui aliquid designat ipsi intellectui) {D.S., par. 2).54 This definition,
Bacon says, contains a two-way relationship, that of the sign to the
intellect for whom it signifies (relationship in the dative) and that
of the sign to what is signified (relationship in the accusative). For
Bacon the first relationship determines the second (D.S., par. 1). In
fact, as he demonstrates time and again in the following pages, the
speaker is at all times free to reimpose the signs, that is to give them
51 This commentary is in the process of being edited and I thank A. Conti for
having allowed me to use his transcription. (Passage cited in I. Rosier, La parole. ..,
97). See below for the exact source of this definition.
52 S.G., 21:5-10: for examples in this grammatical tradition, see I. Rosier, La
parole. . ., 98-100; for other examples, especially those in the tradition of Logic, see
C. Marmo, Semiotica e linguaggio. . ., ch. 1; I. Rosier, “Variations medievales. . .
53 De signis, par. 1-2; see our translation, notes and bibliography in La parole. . .,
text 7; CSTh, ch. 1, with the translation, notes and references provided by Th.
Maloney; C. Marmo, Semiotica e linguaggio. . ., 20-36 and bibliog.
54 This definition is at the same time close to the one in De doctrina Christiana, II,
1, 1 (ed. J. Martin, Corpus christianorum, series latina, xxxii, iv, 1, Tumhout: Brepols,
1962): Signum est res praeter speciem quam ingerit sensibus, aliud aliquid ex se
faciens in cogitationem venire; and that of De dialectica, v, (ed. J. Pinborg, trs. &
notes B. Darrell Jackson, Dordrecht/Boston: D. Reidel, 1975): Signum est quod et
se ipsum sensui et praeter se aliquid animo ostendit. One notices the addition in the
definition of Bacon: that which offers itself to both sense and intellect, already intro­
duced by other authors (cf. I. Rosier, La parole .. ., 108; 114-115 and 323, nn. 8-9).
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 93
a new meaning: signification is thus subordinate to the decision of
the speaker. The definition of the sign in the De doctrina Christiana had
been the subject of commentary by the theologians in general, be­
ginning with Peter Lombard. But this more original idea of a two-
way relationship is to be found expressed in terms astonishingly close
to those of the De signis in the writings of the English Dominican
Richard Fishacre, and likewise in Bacon’s colleague, Bonaventure.55
However, here the primacy between the two relations is reversed. In
the sphere of sacramental theology it is quite impossible to envisage
that the signification of the sign depends on the speaker or on the
listener. Bonaventure raises precisely this question with regard to the
matter of infant baptism. For these theologians, the relationship be­
tween the sign and what is signified is an essential one, it depends
on its having been instituted as such and it is not subject to modi­
fication. This difference of point of view between Bacon and the
theologians is nicely illustrated with the example of the circulus vini,
which they analyse in the exactly opposite way. The circular sign
above the tavern, Bonaventure explains, remains a sign even if no
one is looking at it: the relationship of sign to signified, once insti­
tuted, remains always in force {in actu) and grounds the sign as such.
In contrast, Bacon maintains that a sign such as this, even if it has
been instituted to signify some thing, is only a sign in potentia, but not
in actu, if there is no one “for whom” it signifies {D.S., par. 1).
The second element consists of the classification of signs. In the
De signis (par. 3-15) or in the CSTh (par. 26-43) Bacon proposes the
following typology:56
(1) natural signs: example smoke-fire
(2) signs directed by the soul in order to signify
(2.1) signifying conventially, in the mode of the concept
(2.1.1) linguistic signs
(2.1.1.1) by way of imperfect deliberation: interjections
55 For a more complete demonstration, see I. Rosier, La parole. .., ch. 3.4. The
Commentary of Richard Fishacre is being edited by Joseph Goering who has kindly
provided his transcription (cf. texts cited, Ibid., 113—120). For Bonaventure, see
Commentarii in quattuor Libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, (Opera omnia, Quarracchi, IV,
1, 1, art. n., q. 11, 15).
56 For a more detailed presentation, see U. Eco et al. “O n Animal Language . . .”;
T.S. Maloney, “Roger Bacon on the signification . . . ”; C. Marmo, Semiotica e hnguaggu)... ,
36—56. See also the notes to our translation of the De signis and that of the CSTh by
Maloney, cited above.
 94 IRENE ROSIER-GATAGH
(2.1.1.2) by way of perfect [completed] deliberation: other
parts of speech
(2.1.2) non-linguistic signs (the language of gestures, signs made
by monks, sign-boards, etc.)
(2.2) signifying naturally, in the mode o f affect
(2.2.1) products of the sensitive soul: sounds emitted by animals
(2.2.2) products of the rational soul: groans, exclamations, cries of
pain.
The first distinction [(1) vs. (2)] corresponds to the De doctrina Christiana
(I. 11, I, 2-3). It is taken up by the theologians from the second half
of the twelth century on. To make a place for the sacraments in the
signa data they work out classifications based on several distinguishing
criteria [naturalia/data (or voluntaria)\; signa sacra/ non sacra; significata sacra/
non sacra etc.57 Beginning with Peter Lombard’s outline (Sent. IV, 1, 6),
several commentators of the thirteenth century will do the same, most
notably Robert Kilwardby.58
These parallels lead us to consider as improbable what Bacon says
in the CSTh, namely that he worked out independently in the De
signis an analysis of signs (per studium proprie inventionis) and that subse­
quently coming across Augustine’s outline he was able to claim it as
an authority (CSTh, par. 25). Why would Bacon, who quotes Augus­
tine’s De doctrina Christiana in so many passages of his Opus maius when
he wishes to legitimize his project, parallel to Augustine’s, of placing
the sciences, and the linguistic sciences in particular, in the service of
theology and the Church, this Bacon who mentions Augustine in the
resume of the Opus tertium, who draws the inspiration for this whole
section on the cognitio linguarum from the De doctrina Christiana—why
would he overlook these chapters on the sign when he was writing the
De signis? It seems to us on the contrary that Bacon’s treatment is in­
deed dependent on Augustine’s, by way of theologians who had them­
selves reflected on these definitions and classifications. Bacon’s great
merit is precisely to have integrated into the one analysis those ele­
ments which were present in the theological tradition, along with other
treatments, of Aristotelian origin, which were in part present in the
treatises of the Artists.
Indeed, if the first distinction [(1) vs. (2)] is in fact borrowed from
57 Cf. D. Van den Eynde, “The terms Hus positivum, et ‘signum positivum. .
58 Quaestiones in librum quartum sententiarum, ed. R. Shenk, (Munchen: Verlag der
Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1993), 225:95-226:104.
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 95
Augustine, this is not the case with the internal division of the sec­
ond category [(2.1) vs. (2.2)], which is classical in the Aristotelian
Latin tradition from Boethius on. The first division takes an opposi­
tion between signs which are such because their “reason for being a
sign” does not depend on an “intention of the soul,” (the relation­
ship between signifier and signified depending precisely on the things
signified), as illustrated by the classic example of smoke and fire (D.S.,
para. 3). In contrast the signs “established by the soul in order to
signify” (ordinata, data, cf. D.S., para. 15, 164, 165) are those whose
“reason for being a sign” has been conferred by the soul. Among
these latter are those called ad placitum, the result of conventional
agreement, of choice and deliberation (2.1), whether linguistic in
character (2.1.1) or no (2.1.2), like the circulus vini, which we have
already mentioned. Others are said to “signify naturally,” as for ex­
ample groans or the barking of dogs (2.2). They have their origin in
reactive instinct, the impulses which are not controlled by reason,
whether produced by animals (2.2.1) or by human beings (2.2.2).
Bacon thus distinguishes between natural signs (1) and signs which
signify naturally (2.2). In the case of the latter, even if deliberation
is rudimentary, the relation of the sign to the signified nevertheless
activates an operation “of the soul” whether sensitive or rational. What
characterizes a sign as belonging to one or other of these categories
does not consist in its nature as thing but in the “reason” for which it
is a sign. This idea can be found already in Abelard when he explains
that the barking of a dog can be seen either from the dog’s perspec­
tive as a mode of expression “instituted by God” for the dog so that
he can speak his anger or, from the point of view of the listener, as
a sign associated with this sentiment, and thus as a concommittance
linking the two events.59 In the first case we have what Bacon calls a
sign signifying naturally; in the second a natural sign. Already in the
Summulae dialectices, Bacon was making the similar opposition between
the crowing of the cock (cantus galli), emitted with intention, and the
fact that the cock crows (gallum cantare), which is for us the sign that
day is breaking.60
59 Abelard, Dialectica I, ed. L.M. de Rijk (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1970), 114-22-25;
Glossae super Peri Hermeneias, ed. B. Geyer, Peter Abelards Philosophische Schrifien I. Die
Logica “Ingredientibus” (Munster: Aschendorf, 1919), 335-29-32.
50 Summulae dialedice, I, 222, par. 21-23; the second example is repeated in the De
signis, par. 4. The example of the hen which cackles to call its young to eat is very
close to that of the cock which, having found some food, “makes a vocal sign” to
the hen, cited by Augustine in the De doctrina Christiana, II, iii, 3.
 96 IRENE ROSIER-CATAGH
Two supplementary points deserve to be briefly noted. The first
has to do with a particular category of signs, namely, interjections.
These signs have in fact an intermediary status. O n the one hand,
they are words in language, part of the institution of language, and
merit as such being classified in the category (2.1) of conventional
signs, signifying “in the mode of concept.” O n the other hand, in
contrast to other parts of speech, these words are emitted by the
speaker when he is troubled and thus are close to the groans emitted
under the assault of pain “suddenly and without deliberation” belong­
ing to the category (2.2) of signs which signify “in the mode of affect.”
Bacon elsewhere vacillates between classifying interjections in one or
other category. It should be said that these reflections all belong in
the important tradition of discussion instituted among grammarians
from 1240 on. In terms close to Bacon’s, they distinguish for example
three modes of expression of pain—a purely instinctive expression,
by means of a cry; a completely conventional expression, by a word
or a sentence; and an expression intermediary between the two, by
an interjection, which partakes at once of the “concept mode” and
the “affect mode.” It is to be noted that this type of discussion is to
be found in some English writers, such as the Tractatus de grammatica
which we will speak about below; and in some authentic works of
Robert Kilwardby or in the later writings of anonymous authors which
are conserved in Kilwardby’s manuscripts—all of which indicating
the milieu in which Bacon developed.61*
The last point which we mention is connected with the content
of the first category of signs (1). The signs of type (1.1) signify by
virtue of a relationship of natural consequence. One recognizes here
everything the logic tradition calls “sign,” especially as in the Prior
Analytics (70a6 sq.), the Sophistical Rejutations (167b9 sq.), and the Rhetoric
(I, 1357a-b), where one finds the classic examples (e.g. if an animal
has vigorous limbs it is because it is strong). One of the non-Aristotelian
examples— “to wander often at night is a sign that one is a thief”
(.D.S., para. 4)—is to be found in Averroes’ paraphrase of Aristotle’s
Rhetoric, which, as we will see below, was probably known by Bacon.
The signs of the second category (1.2) are grounded in a relation of
61 See I. Rosier, La parole.. ., chs. 2 & 3; on the interjections, see J. Pinborg,
“Inteijektionen und Naturlaute, Petrus Heliae und ein Problem der antiken und
mittelalterlichen Sprachphilosophie,” Classica et mediaevalia, 22 (1961), 117-138; on
the distinction between per modum affectus and per modum conceptus, see G. Nuchelmans,
“The distinction . . and I. Rosier, Ibid., ch. 5.
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 97
“similitude,” or “similar configuration,” including not only pictures
and images but also all sorts of natural relations existing between the
different poles of the semiotic triangle, for example the relation of
sound to the concept of a thing in the mind (if I hear a word, I infer
from that that a concept associated with that sound exists in the
mind of a person pronouncing the word) (.D.S., para. 16-18, 162—
169). All the relations in this triangle are signa for Bacon, whether
conventional or natural (D.S., para. 166). Category (1.3) of D.S. is
not carried over into the Opus tertium or the CSTh. It contains two
examples borrowed from the De doctrina Christiana—smoke as sign of
fire, tracks as sign of an animal’s passage, with this latter being reclassi­
fied in the CSTh under (1.2) by reason of the relation of similitude
existing between the sign and the signified. In the D.S., the signs in
this third category were characterized by the relation of cause and
effect linking the sign (smoke) to the signified (fire). Even here Bacon
explains that this type of relation is not sufficient to ground a relation
of signification, which would require, over and above the sign and
what it signifies, some one “for whom” it signifies (D.S., para. 6).
This hesitation of Bacon’s concerning the relation of cause and effect
can be compared once again to the exposition of Richard Fishacre.
He discusses it with regard to the relation of created things to their
creator. Granting the priority of the relation of the sign to “what it
signifies” above the relation of the sign “for whom” it signifies, Fishacre
maintains that created things remain signs even if no one interprets
them as such, a state of affairs he deplores moreover as being the
case too often. One understands why Bacon, who inverses this pri­
ority, was led to reject the relation of cause and effect as character­
izing a certain type of sign. The real nature of the relation between
the two poles of the sign, particularly cause and effect, is of little
importance. What is important is the intellect which recognizes this
relation, that which is produced by means of the inferential signs
mentioned above.
One needs to keep in mind the parts missing from this third section
of the Opus maius, part three, whose contents are available to us thanks
to the summary of the Opus tertium. In fact the complete section regard­
ing the application of the study of signs to theology is missing. The
fact that this study includes the study of the sacraments as signs only
confirms the connections we mentioned with the work of theologians
on this subject. But it covers other questions as well (cf. para. 2.3
supra). Perhaps certain theologians pondered these same questions, as
 98 IRENE ROSIER-GATAGH
is suggested by the interesting chapter of Henry of Ghent on divine
names, which develops the Augustinian theory of the sign while intro­
ducing like Bacon some reflections on the relations between the differ­
ent levels of meaning in exegesis or on the Adamic language, while
not denying himself recourse to the reflections of the “artists.”62 The
analysis of Peter John Olivi on conventional signs is another indica­
tion of these connections.63 The study of signs which Bacon under­
takes in the conserved section of De signis where he tries to construct
a general semantic and semiological doctrine on the basis of a tra­
dition both theological and “artistic” was undoubtedly conceived
by Bacon as the theoretical section before being afterwards used
for multiple theological ends. In the CSTh. for instance, after a very
technical passage invoking Aristotle and Averroes on signification, he
encourages his reader to become interested in the metaphorical locu­
tions of the Scriptures, in the three levels of meaning operative there,
or in the signification of the sacraments and other sacred signs {CSTh,
para. 83).
5. Conclusion
The diversity and richness of Roger Bacon’s reflections on language is
remarkable. It is somewhat difficult to gather them together in one well
expressed general idea. Nonetheless one can propose a few remarks
in this sense, by way of a conclusion.
We have already seen that for Bacon there were three successive
levels in the mastering of a language: to be able to read it and the
rudiments of grammar; the ability to translate; the ability to speak it
like one’s mother tongue. He seems to think that one cannot attain
this third level by a purely grammatical method but rather by direct
contact with native speakers. He contrasts here natural “innate” knowl­
edge which every native speaker has of the grammar and logic of a
language with a reflective knowledge which is only attainable by the
very few.64 Going beyond elementary primers which proceed pueriliter
62 Henry of Ghent, Summa quaestionum ordinarium, q. 73, ed. with study, I. Rosier,
“Henri de Gand, le Dialectica d’Augustin, et l’imposition des noms divins,” in Documenti
e studi sulla tradizione jilosofica medievale vi (1995), 145-253.
63 See F. Delorme, “Question de P.J. Olivi ‘Quid ponat ius vel dominium’ ou
encore ‘De signis voluntariis’”, Antonianum xx (1945), 309-330.
64 Op. tert., ch. xxviii, 104—105: Et Avicenna dicit, in logica sua, quod rusticus
Arabicus scit grammaticam per naturam; quod oportet, si logicam sciamus per
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 99
et per viam narrationis, without demonstration but by simple description
of what is, true reflexive knowledge must leave this level behind to
reach the level of explanation per causas et rationes {Opus maius part four,
Vol. 1, 100). Even if he seems to suggest sometimes that this gram­
mar per rationes belongs to the study of grammar and that Priscian
furnished the relevant model, he says clearly elsewhere that this task
exceeds the domain of grammar and that it belongs to two other
disciplines. The first is metaphysics. The grammarian should restrict
himself to articulating properties substantial and general and to giv­
ing the rules for the realization of such in the different languages
{O.G.G., p. 142). The “pure grammarian” must not research the
“causes” which would explain for example why there are only five
vowels {O.G.G., p. 58). Bacon opposes himself vigorously to the route
taken by a certain treatise on grammar which had been attributed—
without justification, as he demonstrates—to Aristotle. This treatise,
according to Bacon, begins its chapter on letters and sounds with an
exposition of the movements of the heavenly bodies, to conclude by
showing that there are seven such movements and for that reason
seven vowels {O.G.G., pp. 57-59). The anonymous author of the Trac-
tatus de grammatica does indeed set forth this concept, detailing how
the four premier vowels (a, u, i, o), which originate in the four kinds
of simple celestial movements, are common to all speakers {omnes ser-
mocinantes), with it being otherwise in the case of the last three—e
being used only by the Latins, and e, v, and w by the Greeks.65 Not
only, says Bacon, is the conclusion false66 but above all it is not to a
treatise on grammar but to a treatise on metaphysics that he would
go to study these “causes.” The Tractatus traces the diversity of
vowels to the “diversity of complexions of mankind which vary as a
function of the climate, an idea which Bacon refers to frequently.67*
naturam, quae posterior est. Vocabula enim grammaticae et logicae discimus; sed
naturaliter scimus componere orationes ex dictionibus et argumenta ex propositionibus.
Et hoc docet grammatica, et logica. . . . Quapropter de logica et grammatica non est
necessaria instructio humana nisi propter vocabula linguarum, quibus utimur in col-
latione facienda cum aliis, propter necessitatem scientiae. See also Quaestiones supra libros
prime Philosophiae Aristotelis, ed. Steele, 96-7; Communia mathematica, ed. Steele, 64—5.
65 Tractatus de grammatica, ed. K. Reichl, in Ibid., “Tractatus de grammatica” einejalschlich
Robert Grosseteste zugeschriebene spekulatwe Grammatik (Miinchen: Schoningh, 1976), 19-21.
66 One notices that Bacon is not always consistent, because elsewhere he clearly
affirms that the Greek has seven vowels, which are reduced to four according to the
principal sound (Opus maius, part three, ed. Bridges, Vol. Ill, ch. iii, 92; CSPh., ch. ix,
499).
67 Tractatus de grammatica, ed. Reichl, 21:1-9: Sunt igitur in universo differencie
motus simpliciter 7 iuxta quas 7 prime differencie vocis simpliciter sumuntur, iuxta
 100 IRENE ROSIER-CATACH
This example, with its important methodological implications, is not
the only reference in Bacon to the Tractatus de grammatica. In point of
fact, the Tractatus explicitly claims to be doing grammar modo metaphyske,
thus exceeding the limits of the discipline.68 Bacon on the other hand
explicitly refuses this position, arguing by contrast that an elementary
discipline should remain within the bounds of its proper limits (Op.
tert., ch. xvi, 57). In the same way Bacon finds fault with scholars
who introduce into a grammar these concepts belonging to disci­
plines which will only be studied later in the curriculum, and this is
the procedure adopted by the author of the Tractatus, who begins his
exposition with a classification of the sciences. This connection be­
tween Bacon and the Tractatus is noteworthy, all the more because one
of the manuscripts containing the Tractatus is the celebrated Oxford
Digby 55, which preserves the De signis. And because the Tractatus
probably comes from the circle of Robert Grosseteste.69
But it is above all to music that he assigns the “causes and reasons”
of phenomena which grammar does no more than describe—the
length and accents of letters and syllables, the processes of prosody,
metre and rhythm which underly compositions in sound. “The gram­
marian is to the musician as the carpenter is to the geometer.” The
“mechanical” work of the grammarian is not to be compared with
the musician’s, which is “the principal artisan.”7071It should be noted
that Bacon relies here on a number of authorities such as Isidore,
quas 7 vocales sumuntur: a, u, i, o, e, v, w. Quorum 4 primorum omnes sermocinantes
utuntur que a 4 speciebus mutus simplicis sumuntur. Ceteris vero tribus, e, v, w, non
utuntur omnes, sed quidam quibusdam ut latini e in lingua latina, greci vero in
lingua sua omnibus. Et hec diversitas a diversitate naturalis complexionis hominum
est secundum diversitates climatum. Unde greci proferendo v magis tangunt naturam
[z] quam a, cum tamen v sit media inter a et i.
68 Ibid., 17:31-32: Excedendo igitur artis metas et sciencie terminos dicendum est
de natura vocis et omnis soni modo metaphysico.
69 Ibid., 105-113.
70 Opus menus, part four, ed. Bridges, Vol. I, 237: Sed musicae est dare causas et
rationes horum, licet grammaticus doceat, quia est de his. Praeterea tota pronuntiatio
scripturae consistit penes accentus, longitudines, et brevitates, et penes cola, commata,
periodos; et haec omnia pertinent causaliter ad musicam, quia horum omnium musicus
dicit propter quid, grammaticus vero quia est tantum. Sic enim auctores philosophiae
determinant, et Augustinus in musicalibus de his determinat; Op. tert., ch. lix, 231:
Ergo grammaticus, qui per viam narrationis laborat, cui dem onstrate non pertinet,
non dabit causas istorum, sed solum quia sic sunt, et sic habent fieri. Ergo grammati­
cus se habet ad musicum, sicut carpentator ad geometricum. Et ideo grammaticus
est mechanicus in hac parte, et musicus est artifex principalis. Quapropter sufficiens
et principalis cognitio, scilicet quae est per causas et rationes, non habetur per
grammaticam, sed per hanc scientiam; et hoc manifestum est ex libris antiquorum
ROGER BACON AND GRAMMAR 101
Cassiodorus, Bede, and above all on Augustine’s De musicaT He like­
wise invokes the Poetics and the Rhetoric of Aristotle, along with the
Commentaries of Averroes,72 and also the De scientiis of Al-Farabi,73 who
had assigned to the speculative part of music the task of “giving the
reasons and the causes of everything which underlies harmony,” espe­
cially as it is operative in metrical composition.7475Bacon views here
discourse in all its dimensions, starting with the preliminary combi­
nation of vowels and syllables, which is part of elementary grammar,
upto semantic content, which is determined by its rhythmical and
prosodic qualities as well as by the gestures and the positions of the
body accompanying the enunciation. These said dimensions come
together towards the formation of what Bacon calls the poetic argu­
ment, which he deals with in the fifth treatise of his Phibsophia moralis.15
When we remember that music arises out of the science of quantities,
huius scientiae; Ibid., ch. lx-lxiv, 243-268, ch. lxxv, 306-9; O.G.G., 96-7. On this
“reduction” of grammar and logic to music, see Jeremiah M.G. Hackett, “Moral
Philosophy. . .,” 31-35 and 99-102.
71 Opus maius, part four, ed. Bridges, Vol. I, 237-238: Augustinus reducit metra et
pedes et hujusmodi ad musicalia. Cf. Augustine, De musica, II, 1-2, PL 32, 1099ff.
The other sources are analysed by E. Massa, Ruggero Bacone. .., 167, n. 17.
72 Phil. Mor., V, 263: Liber autem Aristotelis de argumento poetico non est
translatus, set exposicio eius per Avenrois et quedam aha reperiuntur in latino, ut
patet ex libro Alpharabii De scienciis et ex Logicis Avicenne et Algazelis; cf. also Phil,
mor., VI, 267. One knows that the Rhetoric of Aristotle was first translated perhaps by
Bartholomew of Messina (translatio vetus). It was little used. A second, based on the
Arabic, and accompanied by the Commentary of Averroes, was made by Hermannus
Alemannus in 1246. And finally that by William of Moerbecke, based on the Greek,
in 1270. The Poetics was translated from the Greek by William of Moerbecke in
1278, and Bacon could not have known the text directly. In contrast, he knew the
translation of the Middle Commentary of Averroes on the Poetics, translated from
the Arabic by Hermannus Alemannus in 1256, which explains the passage above.
He himself stated that the translator himself told him that he declined to translate
the Poetics after the Rhetoric because he lacked a knowledge of logic {Phil, mor., VI,
267-8-26), his confession of failure appearing, along with other justifications as well,
in the preface to the commentary of Hermann to his translation of the Commen­
tary of Averroes (ed. L. Minio-Paluello, A.L. 33 [Paris-Bruxelles, 1968], 51). Bacon
points out also that this latter translation was little used in his times, especially by
the Artists {Phil, mor., V, 251:15-18, 255:24—30). O n this topic, see E. Massa, Ruggero
Bacone, pp. 137-143 and the study of G. Dahan, “Notes and T e x ts .. . ”, esp. pp.
173-75, 181-2, 191-92; O n Phibsophia Moralis and rhetoric, see Hackett, “Moral
Philosophy. . .” and Rosier-Catach, “Roger Bacon, Al-Farabi.. . .”
73 Opus maius, part four, ed. Bridges, Vol. I, 238; Op. tert., ch. lxiv, 266, ch. lxxv,
305; Phil, mor., v, 263.
74 Liber Alfarabii de scientiis, ed. cit., 154, see also 139-140 on poetics. Cf. Dominicus
Gundisalinus, De scientiis, ed. cit., 107.
75 Op. tert., ch. lxiv, 266-67, Phil, mor., ch. v, 254—55, 258-61; See E. Massa,
Ruggero Bacone. . ., 127ff.; 148ff.; 155ff.: see Jeremiah Hackett below.
 102 IRENE ROSIER-GATACH
that is mathematics, we begin to see how substantial was Bacon’s
rearranging of the traditional framework of the trivium by placing
grammar under music.
We see here the break that Bacon makes with the type of gram­
mar taught at the university since the first half of the thirteenth century
and particularly in the years 1267—68 when he was writing his Opera.
And yet, as we said in our first section, he was still following the
speculative mode of doing grammar when he wrote, like a good “art­
ist,” his Summa grammatica, borrowing from various treatises of Aristotle
in order to explicate the rationes behind regular and figurative construc­
tions, all the while using the demonstration methods of the quaestio
disputata.
What connects perhaps the Summa grammatica with the three sections
of the third part of the Opus maius, as well as with elaborations and
parallel developments in other works of Roger Bacon’s is this vision
of language apprehended in its concrete functioning, situated in time
and space, always being seen in its intersubjective dimension, whether
it is a question of the reader/interpreter before the text, sacred or
profane, of the “author”, of the priest before the faithful or of the
preacher about to “persuade” the unfaithful. In these matters the
Augustinian heritage, especially that of the De doctrina Christiana, is
always present.76 This conception of language is assuredly in conformity
with his ideal of a sapientia which aims not only at speculation but
much more at action,77 a sapientia which touches not only the intellect
but also the feelings, and which has as its goal the perfection of man
as a whole. All the elements which together give speech its value
and effectiveness are viewed in the context of a hierarchy which begins
with grammar to culminate in music or poetry, passing through the
stages of logic and rhetoric {Op. tert., ch. lxxv, 307-308). The analysis
begins with the simplest constitutive physical elements, letters, signs,
sentence; proceeds to the description of the various arguments, dia­
lectic and rhetorical; and culminates with the integration of the differ­
ent parameters which one might call the “enunciatives”—intonation,
gesture, the mental disposition of the speaker and his underlying
intention, the state of the world and the disposition of the heavens.
76 Cf. Among other references, Op. tert., 305.
77 Cf. Opus maius, part two, ed. Bridges, Vol. Ill, 76: tota philosophia speculativa
ordinatur in finem suum, qui est philosophia moralis. On the relations between the
Scientia speculativa and the Scientia practica, in the Phibsophia moralis, see Jeremiah Hackett,
“Moral Philosophy . . .”, 24ff.
5. RO GER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE
Alain De Libera
Relativement abondante, l’oeuvre logique de Bacon n’est pas pour
autant comparable a celle de ses contemporains artiens ou theolo-
giens. Elle ne comporte aucun commentaire de VOrganon, contraire-
ment par exemple a l’oeuvre de Robert Kilwardby.1 En outre, dans
sa dimension proprement universitaire, elle est liee aux formes litte-
raires les plus anciennes pratiquees a Paris ou a Oxford: les recueils
de distinctions et les sommes, et elle n’aborde pas le domaine des
questions disputees. Son importance est neanmoins considerable tant
dans l’histoire de la logique en general que pour ce qui concerne sa
place et sa fonction dans l’oeuvre de Bacon lui-meme. On peut,
grossierement, distinguer deux periodes dans la production logique
baconienne: une premiere, qui le fait contemporain des premieres
grandes realisations de la Logica modemorum, c’est celle de la Summa de
sophismatibus et distinctionibus (= SSD)2 et des Summulae dialectices {— SD);3
une seconde, qui, avec le De signis {= DS)4 et son produit derive le
Compendium studii theologm (= GST)5 s’inscrit dans un univers plus origi­
nal, celui des projets de reforme de la societe chretienne par la reforme
du savoir chretien, ou BacQn met toute son energie et ses espoirs,
celui aussi de l’universite de la seconde moitie du XIIIe siecle, pro-
fondement transformee par l’apparition de courants nouveaux—tel
1 Cf. P.O. Lewry, O.P., Robert LCilwardby’s writings on the Logica vetus, diss., Oxford,
1978. Sur la semantique de Kilwardby, cf. P.O. Lewry O.P., “Robert Kilwardby on
Meaning: A Parisian Course on the Logica Vetus1’, in Sprache und Erkenntnis im Mittelalter,
J.P. Beckmann et al., ed., Miscellanea Medievalia 13/1, Berlin, Walter De Gruyter,
1981, p. 376-384.
2 Cf. Summa de sophismatibus et distinctionibus, ed. R. Steele, Opera Hactenus Inedita
Roigeri Baconi, XIV, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1937.
3 Cf. Summube dialectices I—II, ed. A. de Libera, “Les Summube dialectices de Roger
Bacon. I.-II. De Termino. De enuntiatione”, AHDLMA., 53 (1986), p. 139-289; Summube
dialectices III, ed. A. de Libera, “Les Summube dialectices de Roger Bacon. III. De
argumentatione”, AHDLMA., 54 (1987), p. 171-278
4 Cf. De signis, ed. K.M. Fredborg, L. Nielsen & J. Pinborg, “An Unedited Part
of Roger Bacon’s Opus maius: De signis”, Traditw, 34 (1978), p. 75-136. Le DS etant,
comme on le sait, un fragment de YOpus maius, on peut le dater des annees 1267.
5 Cf. Compendium Studii Theobgbe, ed. Th. S. Maloney, (Studien und Texte zur
Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 20), Leiden-Koln, Brill, 1988.
 104 ALAIN DE LIBERA
le modisme6—et la place croissante prise par les theologiens dans
l’elaboration des doctrines semantiques, la philosophic du langage et
la logique.
L’exceptionnelle longevite de la carriere intellectuelle de Bacon fait
que son oeuvre logique reflete a peu de chose pres l’ensemble de
revolution du siecle.7 II y a en elle de quoi la rapprocher de Guillaume
de Sherwood ou des plus modestes Text-books d’Oxford aussi bien
que des speculations les plus complexes d’un Henri de Gand sur la
classification des signes ou des discussions d’un Duns Scot ou d’un
Pierre Jean Olieu sur la reference vide.
Telle qu’elle se presente aujourd’hui, l’ceuvre authentique de Bacon
comprend, on vient de le voir, quatre litres. C ’est sur ces oeuvres
que nous fixerons notre attention. II faut neanmoins rappeler, pour
memoire, que d’autres textes lui ont ete attribues par les historiens.
II y a d’abord un traite sur les syncategoremes, contenu a la fois
dans un des manuscrits des Summulae dialectices (le ms. Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Digby 204) et un manuscrit d ’Erfurt (Amplon. Q 328).
Toutefois, si N. Kretzmann penche pour l’attribution a Roger Bacon,8
H.A.G. Braakhuis, qui a donne de nombreux extraits de l’oeuvre
dans son etude sur la litterature des Syncategoremata au XIIT siecle
soutient, comme L.M. De Rijk, une autre candidature: celle du domini-
cain d’Oxford, Robert Bacon.9 Une attribution de ces Syncategoremata
a Roger Bacon n ’est pas totalement exclue—de fait, les Summulae
dialectices font elles-memes clairement allusion a un traite de ce genre
(SD, 2.1.3, § 163-164: “In Syncategorematicis magis patebit hoc”) a propos
d’une distinction entre deux modes de disiunctio (entre termes et entre
phrases), dont on retrouve effectivement la trace dans les Syncategoremata
attribues par Braakhuis a Robert Bacon. En outre, il existe divers
paralleles textuels entre les deux oeuvres, que nous avons nous-memes
signales (Libera 1986: 157-160). On ne saurait, cependant, tirer de
conclusion valable avant de disposer de l’edition critique du texte
6 Cf. C. Marmo, Semiotka e linguaggio nella scolastica: ParigL, Bologna, Erfurt 1270—
1330. La semiotka dei Modisti, Rome, Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo, 1994.
7 Pour un panorama general, cf. S. Ebbesen, ed., Sprachtheorien in Spatantike und
Mittelalter (Geschichte der Sprachtheorie), Tubingen, Gunter Narr Verlag, 1995.
8 Cf. N. Kretzmann, “Syncategoremata, Exponibilia, Sophismata”, in The Cambridge
History of Later Mediaeval Philosophy, ed. N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny & J. Pinborg, Cam­
bridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982, p. 221-222, n. 41.
9 Cf. H.A.G. Braakhuis, De 13 de Eeuwse Tractaten over syncategorematische termen: Lnlei-
dende studie en uitgave van Mcolaas van Parijs’ Sincategoreumata, Dissertation, Leiden, 1979,
p. 106-111.
ROGER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE 105
annoncee par H.A.G. Braakhuis. La situation est encore plus incer-
taine s’agissant de la seconde oeuvre attribute parfois a Roger Bacon:
le traite contenu dans le manuscrit d’Amiens, Bibl. mun. 406, connu
sous le titre d’Opus puerorum.10*Ce traite sur les syncategoremes, qui
integre un certain nombre de regies, de distinctions, de questions et
de sophismes, est transmis par peciae (ce qui indique une diffusion
universitaire). Comme il est contenu dans la manuscrit qui livre les
Questions parisiennes de Bacon sur la philosophic naturelle d’Aristote,
on peut etre tente de le lui attribuer egalement. Mais rien dans le
texte ni dans le manuscrit n’incite a le faire—a commencer par les
indications donnees a chaque changement de piece, qui font inva-
riablement reference a un certain “maitre p.h.” (e.g. f. 130ra: Pnma
pecia magjstri p.h). En outre, comme on va le voir, l’ouvrage ferait
nettement double emploi avec la SSD, qui presente la meme struc­
ture et la meme fonction.
La Summa de sophismatibus et distinctionibus
La SSD, dont une partie a ete editee en 1937 par R. Steele d’apres le
manuscrit incomplet d’Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 67 (f. 117ra-
124vb), est preservee plus extensivement dans un manuscrit d’Erfurt,
Amplon., F. 135 (f. 60r-85vb), lui-meme helas incomplet. Aucune
copie integrate de cette oeuvre, qui remonte, semble-t-il, aux annees
1240-1245, n’a ete jusqu’ici retrouvee. La SSD appartient a un genre
litteraire qui a connu une vogue certaine a Paris, dans la premiere
moitie du XIIIe siecle, les Distinctiones sophismatum, dont il existe beau-
coup de temoins: le Tractatus de distinctionibus communibus in sophismatibus
accidentibus attribue a Matthieu d’Orleans, les Distinctiones e(JVotandum”,n
qui ont peut-etre servi de base aux Abstractiones d’Hervaeus Sophista,
les traites De multiplicitatibus circa orationes accidentibus, De solutionibus
sophismatum et De communibus distinctionibus, tous trois edites par L.M.
De Rijk,12 ainsi que plusieurs traites anonymes egalement decrits par
10 Sur cette oeuvre, cf. H.A.G. Braakhuis, De 13de Eeuwse Tractaten.. ., p. 411
412, n. 9.
11 C f Anonyme, Distinctiones Parisienses “Notandum”, ed. A. de Libera, in Cesar et le
Phenix, Distinctiones et sophismata parisiens du XLLLe siecle (Centro di cultura medievale,
IV), Pise, Scuola Normale superiore-Florence, Opus libri, 1991.
12 C f L.M. De Rijk, Some Earlier Parisian Tracts on Distinctiones sophismatum (Artis-
tarium, 7), Nijmegen, Ingenium Publishers, 1988.
 106 ALAIN DE LIBERA
De Rijk et H.A.G. Braakhuis. Bien qu’il soit assez difficile de distin-
guer clairement entre Distinctiones, Sophismata13 et Syncategoremata,H on
peut, a titre heuristique, poser que les Distinctiones ont pour objet
d’inventorier les regies utilisees dans la pratique des sophismata et de
dresser la carte de leur application, tandis que les Syncategoremata ont
pour fonction de decrire pour chaque categorie de syncategoremes,
definie sur la base de proprietes specifiques, l’ensemble des condi­
tions dans lesquelles chacun de ces termes peut exercer ces proprie­
tes et Pensemble des conditions qui font que, dans certains cas, il en
est empeche. La SSD semble occuper une position intermediaire entre
les deux genres: comme les Distinctiones, c’est un recueil de regies
classees d’apres les syncategoremes qui y figurent; comme dans les
Syncategoremata, les regies sont censees exprimer les proprietes syntaxi-
ques et semantiques des termes syncategorematiques.
L’essentiel du texte actuel de la SSD est consacre aux problemes
de quantification universelle, il prend done pour principal fil conduc­
t e d le syncategoreme omnis. Dans la version d’Erfurt (a partir du
f. 73vb), Bacon passe a l’examen d’autres problemes lies au reste des
syncategoremes, mais non sans remarquer que “beaucoup de choses
dites a propos d’omnis peuvent s’appliquer aux autres signes” soit
directement soit a contrario (par exemple, omnis “exige trois objets de
reference, tria appellata, de la part du terme” qu’il quantifie, mais pas
uterque, ambo, etc.). Dans la suite, il s’attache done uniquement aux
signes qui presentent des difficultes propres (c’est le cas de infinita, de
totns, puis des “signes negatifs”).
La SSD ne presente pas d’originalite dans les matieres abordees:
son genre litteraire meme l’interdit, qui consiste a mettre en question
des regies courantes. Elle est, en revanche, souvent audacieuse dans
le traitement qu’elle leur reserve. Elle contient, notamment, des vues
tres neuves sur la notion d’inclusio, couramment utilisee dans la logique
terministe pour rendre compte des phenomenes de scope intervenant
13 Cf. A. de Libera, “La litterature des Sophismata dans la tradition terministe
parisienne de la seconde moitie du X IIIe siecle”, in The Editing of Theological and
Philosophical Texts from the Middle Ages, Acts of the Conference Arranged by the
Department of Classical Languages, University of Stockholm, 29-31 August 1984,
ed. by M. Asztalos (Studia Latina Stockholmiensa XXX), Stockholm, Almquist &
Wiksell, 1986, p. 213-244.
14 Cf. A. de Libera, “La litterature des Abstractions et la tradition logique d’Oxford”,
in The Rise of British Logica. 6th European Symposium on Medieval Logic and Semantics,
Balliol College, Oxford 19-24 juin 1983, ed. by O. Lewry O.P. (Papers in Mediaeval
Studies 7, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies), Toronto, 1985, p. 63-114.
ROGER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE 107
dans des propositions contenant plusieurs syncategoremes ou plusieurs
quantificateurs.15 On appelle normalement inclusio la relation de subor­
dination syntactico-semantique existant entre deux syncategoremes a
l’interieur d’une phrase. Par extension, toutefois, l’inclusion designe
aussi toute relation de subordination existant entre termes exergant
une certaine fonction (officium) dans une phrase—que ces dktianes officiates
soient ou non des syncategoremes. Un terme “inclus” est done un
terme pris dans le champ d’un autre terme, quels qu’ils soient.16 Face
aux propositions susceptibles de deux interpretations, l’une selon le
sens compose, l’autre le sens divise—comme omne animal est rationale
vel irrationale qui peut etre interpretee soit comme une proposition de
predicat disjoint, dans le sens (compose) de “Tout animal est dote de
raison ou depourvu de raison”, soit comme une disjonction de proposi­
tions, dans le sens (divise) de “Tout animal est dote de raison ou Tout
animal est depourvu de raison”17—, les logiciens du XIIIe siecle sou-
tiennent en general une theorie du sens naturel, selon laquelle
l’ordre d’occurrence des termes d’une phrase (leur ordre d’enoncia-
tion, ordo prolationis) constitue une information semantique sur cette
phrase, du fait que la structure logique des phrases est representee
dans l’ordre lineaire des constituants des enonces realises et que ce
qui vient en premier dans l’enonciation determine (“inclut”) neces-
sairement ce qui vient en second (ce qui, dans l’exemple precedent,
present automatiquement une interpretation de sens compose).
Parmi les differentes theories qui contestent la doctrine du sens
naturel, celle de Bacon presente une originalite incontestable. Plutot
que d’essayer de justifier naturellement le rapport d’inclusion existant
entre deux syncategoremes (ou quantificateurs) dans une phrase rea-
lisee, Bacon axe sa reflexion sur le rapport entre l’intention de signifier
du locuteur, la forme linguistique ou elle s’exprime et le sens que lui
attribue l’auditeur. L’articulation des trois est foumie par la notion
15 Cf. A. de Libera, “Suppositio et inclusio dans les theories medievales de la refe­
rence”, in La reference. Actes du Colloque de Saint-Cloud, Ecole Normale Superieure de Saint-
Cloud, 12-13 octobre 1984, ed. par L. Danon-Boileau et A. de Libera, Paris, Ophrys,
1987, p. 9-34.
16 Cf., a ce sujet, A. de Libera, “La logique medievale comme logique naturelle
(Sprachlogik): vues medievales sur l’ambiguite”, in Sprachphilosophie in Antike und Mit-
telalter, Bochumer Kolloquium, 2-4 Juni 1982, Hrsg. von B. Mojsisch (Bochumer
Studien zur Philosophic 3), Amsterdam, Griiner, 1986, p. 403—437.
17 Sur la theorie medievale du sens compose/divise, cf. N. Kretzmann, “Sensus
compositus, Sensus divisus, and Propositional Attitudes”, Medioevo, 1 (1981), p. 195-229.
Cf., egalement, M.L. Rivero, “William of Sherwood on Composition and Division”,
Historiographia linguistica, 3 (1976), p. 17-36.
 108 ALAIN DE LIBERA
d’“engendrement du discours” (generatio sermonis)}8 La these centrale
de la SSD est double: (a) une enonciation doit normalement etre
consideree comme porteuse d’un certain nombre d’indications permet-
tant a l’auditeur de lui associer une interpretation correspondant a
l’intention de signifier du locuteur; (b) toutefois, ces indications ne
suffisent pas toujours pour retrouver ce vouloir-dire et meme, dans
certains cas, elles y font obstacle, dans la mesure ou la forme linguis-
tique de l’enonce, specialement Pagencement des mots, ne reflete pas
directement la pensee du locuteur. Dans sa propre conception de
l’inclusion, fondee sur le parallelisme entre les donnees des sens et
Interpretation semantique, Bacon soutient que ce qui vient en pre­
mier dans une phrase est normalement inclus par ce qui vient en
second—puisque si Pon veut degager un sens naturel des phrases, il
est plus naturel de considerer que ce qui est premier est determine
par ce qui est second (comme, dans la nature, la matiere est deter-
minee par la forme). Au niveau du discours profere, en tant que tel,
le premier syncategoreme (ou quantificateur) est done toujours inclus
par le second. Les caracteres qui determinent la proferation du dis­
cours ne suffisent pas pour autant a determiner la signification de la
phrase: ils ne livrent pas automatiquement Pintention de signification
du locuteur. Pour acceder a Yintentio proferentis il faut faire intervenir
la notion d’engendrement du discours.
Telle que Pexpose Bacon, la theorie de la generatio sermonis soutient
(a) que la proferation d’une phrase etant accidentelle, formalite et
materialite n’y ont qu’un sens relatif; (b) que l’ordre lineaire d’une
phrase ne contient pas, pour Pauditeur, toute Pinformation sur sa
forme logique; (c) que seul l’ordre dans lequel ont ete effectuees les
operations mentales du locuteur precedant la realisation acoustique
de la phrase permet de distinguer entre le materiel (inclusum) et le
formel (includens) et ainsi d’assigner une forme logique a la proposi­
tion mentale qui constitue son sens (intentio proferentis). Ainsi done la
theorie de la generatio sermonis permet de poser que toute phrase pro-
feree est le resultat d’une serie d’operations effectuees dans l’esprit
du locuteur, que Pauditeur doit conjecturer puis interpreter a partir
du contexte extra-linguistique ou du contexte communicationnel, pour
comprendre la phrase dans le sens voulu par le locuteur.
18 Sur cette notion, cf. I. Rosier & A. de Libera, “Intention de signifier et engen-
drement du discours chez Roger Bacon”, Histoire, Epistemologie, Langage, 8 /2 (1986),
p. 63-79.
ROGER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE 109
Facile a saisir dans une perspective centree sur le pole recepteur
dans l’acte de communication, la theorie de Bacon presente plus
de difficultes pour qui la considere du point de vue du pole emet-
teur. Il ne fait pas de doute, pourtant, que, pour Bacon, la notion
d’engendrement du discours qui fait de toute proposition mentale
une interpretation vaut aussi bien pour le locuteur que pour Pauditeur.
En posant que toute proposition mentale est une interpretation,
e’est-a-dire l’intellection d’un intellect “qui analyse (= decode) ou qui
engendre (= encode)”, Bacon souligne clairement que la signification
d’une phrase est toujours ou construite ou deduite par une intellec­
tion. Si la notion d’engendrement du discours n’est pas suffisamment
elaboree pour permettre de formuler une theorie d’ensemble des meca-
nismes par lesquels “l’intellect qui juge, engendre” un sens dans l’esprit
du locuteur “a partir d’elements simples” (les syncategoremes et les
categoremes), tandis que celui “qui analyse”, le “resout” dans l’esprit
de Pauditeur “en distinguant ses elements”, elle place, d’une maniere
nouvelle, la reflexion semantique sur le terrain de l’interlocution en
attirant l’attention sur une serie de phenomenes laisses dans l’ombre
par les autres theories. Surtout, elle noue de maniere originale le
probleme de l’adequation entre forme linguistique et sens exprime,
en obligeant a considerer ensemble le sens produit par Pagencement
des constituants d’un enonce, le sens conforme a Pintention du locu­
teur et les actes d’interpretation (encodage, decodage) effectues par
deux sujets linguistiques a la fois egalement fibres, egalement raison-
nables et supposes egalement sinceres, dans une situation d’inter-
locution. S’il est vrai que e’est dans la Summa grammatica que les
relations entre contraintes naturelles regissant Pagencement des cons­
tituants d’une phrase et construction des sens dependant de la liberte
et de la volonte des locuteurs sont le mieux theorisees {Summa, 24,
6-15), on peut done dire que, malgre les limitations du genre litte-
raire d’un recueil de Distinctiones sophismatum, la SSD engage une
reflexion logique decisive sur la triple determination de la dimension
interlocutoire—liberte du locuteur et de Pauditeur, nature de la lan-
gue, contraintes de la communication—qui prepare la theorisation
plus aboutie du De signis et du Compendium studii theobgiae.
Les Summulae dialectices
Les Summulae dialectices, transmises par deux manuscrits (Oxford,
Bodleian Library, Digby 204, f. 48-75v; Seville, Biblioteca Capitular
 110 ALAIN DE LIBERA
Columbina 5-2-40, f. 68ra-120vb), ont ete longtemps d’attribution
contestee,19 mais la patemite de Roger Bacon n ’est plus aujourd’hui
discutee. C ’est probablement d’ailleurs a elles que Bacon fait allusion
quand, dans le Compendium studii theologiae, il evoque les problemes de
semantique des termes qu’il dit avoir traites “plus de quarante ans
auparavant”. Bien qu’il soit difficile de les dater, on peut tenir pour
vraisemblable qu’elles ont ete redigees dans les annees 1250, a Oxford.
Le titre de Summulae dialectices, qui a prevalu depuis R. Steele, son
premier editeur, n’est pas des plus heureux. Le contenu reel de l’oeuvre
est plus exactement exprime par celui que donne le ms. de Seville:
Summula super totam logicam. II s’agit bien, en effet, d’un traitement
complet de la logique, dont le plan presente une originalite incontes­
table par rapport aux oeuvres concurrentes d’un Pierre d’Espagne ou
d’un Guillaume de Sherwood.20 Adoptant l’agencement des matieres
de VOrganon, selon un regroupement tripartite fonde sur l’ordre de
composition croissant “terme”-“enonciation”-“argumentation”, Bacon
innove, en outre, en plagant l’etude des proprietes des termes (suppositio,
appellatio, copulatio) a la fin de l’etude de l’enonciation, car la suppo­
sition est exclusivement, pour lui, une propriety intrapropositionnelle
des termes categorematiques—une these caracteristique de l’“approche
contextuelle” regnant a Oxford.
La pregnance de l’univers oxonien est sensible d’un bout a l’autre
de roeuvre. Les SD n’etant pas un simple manuel, mais une sorte
d’adaptation d’un ou de plusieurs manuels preexistants, a quoi elles
ajoutent maintes digressions, commentaires et questions diverses, on
doit, en effet, souligner que beaucoup de lemmes repris par Bacon
ont des paralleles dans les Text-Books d’Oxford (Logica Cum sit nostra,
Logica Ut dicit) et que certains developpements plus construits sem-
blent empruntes a des contemporains anglais (c’est le cas par exem-
ple du Commentaire sur les Sophistici Elenchi de Robert Kilwardby ou de
sa source). Scientifique, Bacon fait une part bien plus large que ses
19 Cf. L.M. De Rijk, Logica Modemorum I I / 1: The Origin and Early Development of the
Theory of Supposition, Assen, 1967, Van Gorcum, p. 168, 173 et 445.
20 Cf. Pierre d’Espagne, Tractatus callaed afterwards “Summulae logicales”, ed. L.M. De
Rijk, Assen, Van Gorcum, 1972; Guillaume de Sherwood, Introductiones in Logicam;
ed. Ch. H. Lohr, P. Kunze & B. Mussler, in “William of Sherwood. Introductiones in
Logicam. Critical Text”, Traditio, 39 (1983), p. 222-299. Sur l’originalite du plan des
SD, cf. Th. Maloney, “The Summule dialectices of Roger Bacon and the Summulist
form”, in L. Brind’Amour et E. Vance, ed., Archeologie du signe (Papers in Medieval
Studies, 3), Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1983, p. 235-249.
ROGER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE 111
contemporains aux donnees de YAristoteles novus et des ecrits naturels
arabes (il semble connaitre le De congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum
d’Avicenne et le De plantis de Nicolas de Damas, auquel il emprunte
la description de Yambragyon, arbuste intermediaire entre l’herbe et
l’arbre; ailleurs il s’etend sans raison imperieuse sur la theorie aristo-
telicienne de la “double exhalaison” ou introduit une distinction entre
divers types d’etoiles filantes, reprenant le mot arabe assuhub, emprunte
a la version arabo-latine des Meteorologiques). Cette erudition, un peu
ostentatoire, montre que l’auteur des SD n’est pas un simple “dialec-
ticien”, mais un philosophe interesse par les nouveaux savoirs aristo-
teliciens. Tout en plongeant leurs racines logiciennes dans l’univers
oxonien, les SD sont done aussi a la fois impregnees de la culture
des maitres es arts parisiens, comme le montre la presence insistante
de themes couramment developpes dans les Introductions a la phibsophie21*
des artistes parisiens des annees 1250 (c’est le cas, par exemple, de
la classification des arts proposee dans le ms. de Seville) et riches de
la culture accumulee par Bacon durant ses annees d’etude des ecrits
naturels d’Aristote. Ce n’est pas la, cependant, que reside l’interet
principal des SD, mais dans les vues semantiques originales qu’elles
develpppent sur les proprietes des termes.
Un des axes principaux de la semantique des SD est la contro-
verse sur Yappellatio unwoca, e’est-a-dire sur la possibility pour un terme
de s’appliquer univoquement a un etant et a un non-etant. Ce pro-
bleme que Bacon a toujours considere comme l’un des plus fonda-
mentaux de la semantique, au point, comme on le verra, d’y revenir
de maniere insistante dans toute l’oeuvre de sa maturite (du De signis
au Compendium studii theologiae), est aborde de maniere detaiUee dans
les SD. Contre la sententia communis affirmant la possibility d’une telle
reference univoque ad entia et non entia, Bacon accumule, des les SD,
une batterie d’arguments qu’il reprendra ensuite, en les perfection-
nant et les adaptant au nouveau contexte intellectuel. Le plus cons­
tant est le recours a l’autorite d’Aristote, dans la Metaphysique, I, 9,
992b 12-15, lue a la lumiere du commentaire d’Averroes (Metaph. II,
comm. 46, f. 25vL): un terme nomme seulement des choses presen-
tes, car rien n’est commun a l’etant et au non-etant ou bien a un
present, un passe et un futur (cf. SD, § 526-527; DS, 4.1, ed. Fredborg
21 Sur cette litterature et ses themes, cf. Cl. Lafleur, Quatre introductions a la Phib­
sophie au X lIT specie. Textes critiques et etude hisbrique, Montreal-Paris, Universite de
Montreal-Vrin, 1988.
 112 ALAIN DE LIBERA
§ 134—135, p. 125; CST, ed. Maloney, § 88, p. 88). Dans les SD, la
these de Bacon sur la nomination est exprimee dans le langage de
1’“appellation”. Les SD, 2.2, § 526-527 (ed. de Libera), presentent la
controverse sous la forme d’une duplex sententia de appellatione: “Quidam
dicunt, quod terminus appellat de se appellata praesentia, praeterita
et futura, et est communis entibus et non entibus. Alii dicunt, quod
terminus est solum nomen praesentium, et nihil est commune end et
non end, sive praeterito, praesenti et futuro, secundum quod dicit
Anstoteles in I Metaphysicae”. C ’est seulement en analysant la these
des partisans de l’univocite que Bacon recourt a la notion de suppositio,
quand il mentionne la regie sur laquelle s’appuient ses adversaires
(§ 529): “Terminus non restrictus ad non-praesentes supponens verbo
de praesenti non habenti vim ampliandi in propositione affirmativa
supponit tantum pro praesentibus, ut ‘Homo est’, ‘Caesar est.’” On
peut etre tente de distinguer entre la these un peu archaique selon
laquelle un nom appelle (appellat) aussi bien des presents, des passes
et des futurs et la these, plus moderne, selon laquelle un terme sup­
pose naturellement pour des presents, des passes et des futurs, tandis
que quand il est sujet d’un verbe au present, il suppose (normale-
ment) pour des presents, car il est restreint a cette supposition par le
temps present du verbe. De fait, la premiere these evoque les formu­
lations de la fin du XIIe siecle, tandis que la seconde renvoie a la
theorie dite de la suppositio naturalis et a celle de la restrictio caracteris-
tique des logiciens parisiens du XIIF siecle.22 Mais, il faut noter que
Bacon rejette les deux. En fait, des la SSD (Steele, 1937, p. 149), il
pose qu’un terme “ne conceme de lui-meme que des appeles pre­
sents, meme s’il peut etre contracte par la nature du predicat, [. . .]
puisque les passes ou les futurs ne sont appeles par le terme que
relativement” (“terminus de se non concemit nisi appellata presentia,
et etiam per naturam predicati potest contrahi, ut dicitur commu-
n iter,. . . non enim sunt preterita vel futura appellata termini nisi
secundum quid”). Et toute 1’argumentation des SD consiste a reje-
ter la “supposition naturelle”, c’est-a-dire la supposition extrapropo-
sitionnelle d’un terme pour toutes les entites presentes, passees et
futures ou possibles, qui constituent son extension, en lui opposant
22 Sur la supposition naturelle, cf. L.M. De Rijk, “The Development of Suppositio
Naturalis in Mediaeval Logic”, Vivarium, 9 (1971), p. 71-107 et 11 (1973), p. 43-79;
A. de Libera, “Supposition naturelle et appellation: Aspects de la semantique parisienne
au X IIP siecle” in Semantiques medievales: Cinq etudes sur la logique et la grammaire au
rrwyen age, edite par A. de Libera, Histoire, Epistmologie, Langage, 3/1 (1981), p. 63-77.
ROGER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE 113
une supposition intrapropositionnelle reduite d’elle-meme aux seuls
presents, de par sa signification et son imposition originaire, mais
susceptible d’etre amplifiee (ampliatio) aux passes ou aux futurs par le
temps verbal.
Au couple parisien de la supposition naturelle et de la restriction,23
Bacon substitue done la suppositio de se pro praesentibus intraproposi­
tionnelle et l’amplification. Ce retournement complet des bases de la
semantique n’est pas sans equivalent. En quelques passages, Guillaume
de Sherwood semble lui aussi rejeter la supposition naturelle au
benefice de la suppositio de se pro praesentibus,24256 C ’est, toutefois, chez
Bacon que la these est formulee le plus nettement et qu’elle est tiree
jusque dans ses dernieres consequences. L’une de ces consequences
remarquables est la these selon laquelle “la necessite d’une proposi­
tion ne s’etend pas au-dela de l’existence du sujet” (SD, 3.1.4., § 222-
224), qui, reprenant apparemment un theoreme bien connu d’Aris-
tote (De interpretation, 9, 19a23-24), implique en realite le rejet de
propositions comme Omnis homo de necessitate est animal, homine non existmk
ou Caesar est homo, Caesare mortuoP Derriere le probleme du determi-
nisme et celui de l’interpretation statistique de la modalite, qui for-
ment Je contexte explicite de la these de Bacon (avec la distinction
entre necessarium per se et necessarium per accidens chere a la Logica Ut
dicit et la Logica Cum sit nostra), c’est done un autre probleme que vise
Bacon: celui de la predication sur les classes vides in naturali materia.
C ’est, d’ailleurs, a ce niveau que la theorie des SD semble avoir ete
condamnee a Oxford par Robert Kilwardby, en l’espece de la sixieme
erreur in logicalibus du syllabus du 18 mars 1277: Quod veritas cum
necessitate tantum est cum constantia subiectiP La position baconienne n’a
23 Sur cette notion cf. A. de Libera, “O n some X llth and X lllth century Doctrines
of Restriction”, Historiographia Linguistica, 7 /1 -2 (1980), 131-143.
24 Cf. H.A.G. Braakhuis, “The Views of William of Sherwood on some Semantical
Topics and their Relation to those of Roger Bacon”, Vivarium, 15 (1977), p. 111-142.
25 Cf. M. Grabmann, Die sophismataliteratur des 12. und 13. Jahrunderts mit Textausgabe
eines Sophisma des Boethius von Dacien, BeitrGphThMan 36/1 (1940), p. 77-95.
26 Sur les condamnations d’Oxford, cf. P.O. Lewry O.P., “The Oxford Condem­
nations in Grammar and Logic”, in English Logic and Semantics. From the End o f the
Twelfth Century to the Time o f Ockham and Burleigh. Acts of the 4th European Symposium on
Medieval Logic and Semantics, Leiden-Nijmegen, 23~27 April 1979, edited by H.A.G.
Braakhuis, C.H. Kneepkens & L.M. De Rijk (Artistarium. Supplementa 1), Nime-
gue, Ingenium Publishers, 1981, p. 235-278. Sur le rapport Rilwardby-Bacon, cf.
H.A.G. Braakhuis, “Kilwardby versus Bacon? The Contribution to the Discussion
on Univocal Signification of Beings and Non-Beings Found in a Sophisma Attributed
to Robert Kilwardby”, in: Mediaeval Semantics and Metaphysics. Studies Dedicated to L.M.
De Rijk, ed. E.P. Bos, Nijmegen, Ingenium Publishers, 1985, p. 111-142.
 114 ALAIN DE LIBERA
pas rencontre un accueil enthousiaste a Paris. Elle doit y avoir eu,
cependant, des partisans, car sinon on ne pourrait s’expliquer ni la
persistance de la controverse decrite par Boece de Dacie comme magna
controversia inter modemos, ni celle des interventions de Bacon lui-meme.
Toutefois, c’est plutot dans les formulations du De signis que l’opi-
nion de Bacon est le plus souvent rapportee. C ’est le cas chez Siger
de Brabant quand il evoque ceux qui “pour echapper aux difficultes
ont soutenu que, si les choses (signifiees) sont detruites, les termes ne
signifient pas identiquement (idem) ou que leur signification est equi­
voque”, en sorte qu’une proposition comme Homo est animal, nullo
homine existente “n ’est ni vraie ni fausse, puisque ce qui est signifie par
elle n’est ni vrai ni faux ou est equivoque”—position rejetee par Siger
pour qui “la corruption des choses ne change rien au concept qu’on
en a” (corruptio rerum non pervertit earundem conceptionem).27
Un second apport majeur des SD est la complexe theorie de la
determination proposee dans l’analyse des mecanismes de la composi­
tion et de la division du sens propositionnel. Poursuivant la reflexion
sur le sens naturel des phrases entamee dans la SSD, les SD proposent
une theorie qui emprunte une partie de leur terminologie a la gram-
maire, en recourant aux notions de dependance, de determination et
de determinable.28 Cette theorie est articulee en 13 regies, les plus
novatrices etant les 7 premieres [= R1-R7], qui concement les cas
ou une “determination est placee entre deux determinables”. La R1
pose que si, dans une phrase contenant deux determinables et une
determination, la determination s’accorde en nature avec l’un des
deux determinables, il est naturel de les composer. Autrement dit,
dans une phrase comme “Tu non potes vere negare te non esse
asinum”, qui contient deux determinables—le verbe potes a la deuxieme
personne du present de l’indicatif et l’infinitif negare— et une determi­
nation—l’adverbe vere—, le sens compose et “naturel” de la phrase est
27 Cf. Siger de Brabant, Quaestio Utrum haec sit vera: Homo est animal, nullo homine
existente, in Ecrits de logique, de morale et de physique, ed. B. Bazan (Philosophies medie-
vaux, XIV), Louvain-Paris, Publications universitaires-Beatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1974,
p. 56, 15-21.
28 Cf. A. de Libera, “Reference et champs: Genese et structure des theories
medievales de l’ambigulte (XIIe-X IIIe siecles)”, Medioevo, 10 (1984), p. 155-208; “De
la logique a la grammaire: Remarques sur la theorie de la determinatio chez Roger
Bacon et Lambert d’Auxerre (Lambert de Lagny)”, in De ortu grammaticae. A Tribute
to Jan Pinborg, ed. par G. Bursill-Hall, S. Ebbesen and K. Koemer, (Studies in the
History of the Language Sciences, 43), Amsterdam/Philadelphie, John Benjamins
Publishing Company, 1990, p. 209-226.
ROGER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE 115
celui qui compose l’adverbe avec l’infinitif, puisque, du point de vue
grammatical, les adverbes de negation et d’affirmation (comme /also
et vere) s’accordent en nature avec le mode indicatif, qui est celui de
la negation et de l’affirmation. Cette regie logique tiree, en fait, de
Priscien permet done de fixer automatiquement le sens naturel de “Tu
non potes vere negare te non esse asinum” en distinguant le sens natu-
rellement compose: “Tu non potes vere-negare te non esse asinum”
[= Tu ne peux faire une negation vraie en niant que tu n’es pas un
ane] du sens divise, qui ne peut etre qu’artificiel (pour les besoins
d’une disputatk): “Tu non potes-vere negare te non esse asinum” [= Tu
n’es pas vraiment capable de nier que tu n’es pas un ane].
Dans les regies suivantes, Bacon examine les cas ou la determina­
tion ne s’accorde pas en nature avec l’un des determinables. Dans
ces circonstances, l’analyse doit, selon lui, porter soit sur la nature de
la determination soit sur celle des determinables. Si la determination
est une “pure determination” (pura determinatio)—autrement dit: un
nom substantif—, il est naturel de la composer au determinable qui
la precede, plutot qu’a celui qui la suit, puisque, en tant que telle, “une
determination est posterieure a ce qu’elle determine et en depend”
[= R2]. Le sens naturel d’une phrase comme: “Vidisti baculo hunc
percussum” est done le sens compose “Vidisti-baculo hunc percussum”
[= Tu as vu avec un baton que Ton frappait cet homme], lequel est
evidemment absurde, et impose soit de reecrire la phrase sous une
autre forme (e.g. “Vidisti hunc percussum baculo”) ou, au moins,
d’interpreter la phrase initiale en un sens divise, non “naturel”, mais
acceptable: “Vidisti baculo-hunc-percussum” [= Tu as vu qu’avec
un baton on frappait cet homme], Il est inutile d’exposer ici les autres
regies, foumies pour les cas ou le determinant est de nature adjectivale.
Il suffit de noter que dans l’analyse de R3 et R5 Bacon s’appuie sur
la notion grammaticale de “dependance” (dependentia), qui connaitra
une fortune certaine dans la grammaire speculative,29 ou que dans
celle de R4, il s’appuie a nouveau sur Priscien, pour qui les adjectifs
29 Cf. J. Pinborg, hogk uni Semantik im Mittelalter. Ein Ueberblick (Problemata, 10),
Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, Frommann-Holzboog, 1972, p. 122-123; “Can Construc­
tions be Construed? A problem in medieval syntactical theory”, Historiogaphia Lmgdstka,
7/1-2 (1980), p. 202; “Speculative Grammar”, in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval
Phihsophy. Edited by N. Kretzman, A. Kenny and J. Pinborg, Cambridge, CUP,
1982, p. 259-260; R.H. Robins, “Functional Syntax in Medieval Europe”, Historio­
gaphia Linguistka, 7 /1 -2 (1980), p. 233.
116 ALAIN DE LIBERA
et les adverbes sont “mieux places” devant les substantifs que derriere
{Inst, gramm. XV 39; Keil III 89).30*
Cette utilisation de Priscien et, plus largement, des concepts de la
grammaire, montre que Bacon aborde les problemes du langage en
utilisant, autant que possible, toutes les ressources des arts du trivium.
Sa conception de l’analyse logique fait une place non negligeable a
la construction grammaticale. C ’est meme par un recours assez inat-
tendu a cette notion de constructio que Bacon explique et justifie le
fond de sa doctrine de Yappellatio, le rejet de la supposition naturelle
et de la “restriction verbale”, ainsi que le privilege qu’il accorde a la
suppositio de se pro praesentibus et a Yampliatio. C ’est en partant du phe-
nomene grammatical qui voit un meme mot relever d’une certaine
categorie morphologique au niveau de sa signification et d’une autre
au niveau de sa construction effective dans une phrase, qu’il pose en
regie logique generate qu’un meme nom peut, dans une proposition,
etre semantiquement considere d’un double point de vue: celui de la
signification et celui de la construction. Pris au niveau de la significa­
tion un nom est toujours “nom de presents et d’existants” (§ 558:
prout dictio consideratur ut est nomen significationis, sic est solum nomen praesen-
tium et existentium), ce n’est qu’au niveau de sa construction effective (en
tant que nomen constructionis) qu’il peut, parce qu’il est construit avec
un verbe au passe ou au futur, supposer de maniere amplifiee pour
des passes ou des futurs, c’est-a-dire pour des non-existants. Le § 559
des SD rejoint ainsi, sur une base desormais mieux fondee, la these
esquissee dans la SSD: “Terminus de se solum concemit praesentia
et supponit pro illis de sua natura, per naturam autem verbi de
praeterito et futuro vel habenti naturam eorum, ut verba ampliandi,
poterunt stare pro praeteritis et futuris.”
Le rejet de la theorie logique de la restriction au benefice de la
distinction grammaticale entre le niveau de la signification et celui
de la construction explique ainsi les deux theses qui mettent les SD
a part du reste de la production logique des premieres decennies du
X IIF siecle: (a) les verbes au present ne contribuent aucunement a la
supposition des termes en position de sujet d’une phrase, car ils ne
peuvent conferer au terme que ce qu’il a deja, i.e. une relation seman-
tique aux choses presentes auxquelles il est impose (§ 560: “verbum
de praesenti nihil operatur ad suppositionem termini a parte subiecti,
30 Cf. Guillaume de Sherwood, Introductiones in Logicam, ed. Lohr 1983, p. 280,
171-174.
ROGER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE 117
cum non possit facere terminum stare nisi pro praesentibus, et ter­
minus de sui natura hoc habet, quod sic stet”); (b) les noms n’ayant
pas par eux-memes de relation semantique au non-etant, c’est aux
verbes au passe ou au futur qu’il incombe d’amplifier leur supposi­
tion au-dela de leur imposition originaire (§ 561: “sed quia non habet
de se, ut stet pro praeteritis et futuris, ideo verbum de praeterito vel
futuro vel habens vim ampliandi poterit facere ipsum stare pro aliis
a praesenti”). Ces deux theses soutiennent done exactement le meme
point de vue que celui qu’enoncera, quarante ans plus tard, le § 50
du DS (Fredborg: 99-100): “Un mot ne suppose pour quelque chose
dans une phrase que s’il le signifie et lui a ete impose” (“dictio non
supponit pro aliquo in oratione, nisi illud significet et nisi sit ei
impositum”). La seule difference entre les deux textes est que dans le
DS, Bacon explique l’amplification comme un cas particulier de “trans-
fert semantique” (transsumptio) impliquant un “renouvellement {renovatio)
de l’imposition du mot”. Comme on le voit, les SD ne sont done pas
une simple oeuvre de jeunesse, sans rapport avec les oeuvres ulterieu-
res. Riches de toute l’experience accumulee a l’universite de Paris
ou, rappelons-le, dans les annees 1245, s’entrecroisaient terminisme
logique, d’une part, premodisme grammatical de l’autre, tradition
d’Oxford et tradition parisienne, elles livrent au contraire l’horizon
dans lequel Bacon a congu les premiers fondements de ses theories
les plus novatrices.
Le De signis et le Compendium studii theologiae
Le De signis et le Compendium studii theologiae ne sont pas des traites
logiques canoniques au sens ou le sont la SSD et les SD. Le DS est
un fragment incomplet de YOpus maius, edite en 1978 par K.M.
Fredborg; le CST est un traite de reforme de la science theologique
qui contient une version remaniee de plusieurs developpements du
DS. La caracteristique commune aux deux traites est de plonger leurs
racines dans ce qu’on pourrait appeler la semantique des theologiens.
Le langage theorique utilise n’est plus celui du terminisme de la
premiere moitie du X IIF siecle, massivement represente dans la SSD
et les SD, mais un langage plus complexe, empruntant davantage a
Augustin et aux reflexions sur le signe et la signification en theologie,
systematisees, entre autres, par Henri de Gand. Le meme changement
de registre conceptuel intervient au niveau des theories logiques et
118 ALAIN DE LIBERA
grammaticales employees par Bacon—c’est ainsi, par exemple, que
le “langage analytique” (J. Murdoch) des suppositiones s’efface presque
entierement devant celui de la signification, de l’imposition et de l’usage
metaphorique (transsumptio).
Le DS et le CST ne sont pas des oeuvres d’arriere-garde, qui
continueraient simplement sur la lancee de la SSD et des SD: ce
sont des oeuvres de leur temps, qui transposent dans un nouveau
contexte epistemologique certaines des theses defendues par Bacon
au debut de sa carriere. Elies sont done, par la meme, difficiles a
classer sur le plan disciplinaire. La nouvelle theorie du signe qu’elles
proposent a pour point d’application la theologie, avec ses problemes
specifiques. II en va de meme des elements d’ontologie—absents des
sommes de logique de l’epoque anterieure—, qui culminent dans la
discussion de themes a l’epoque surtout developpes dans les oeuvres
theologiques ou dans les commentaires de la Metaphysique d’Aristote:
de la nouvelle doctrine de Yanalogia formulee aux § 100-133 du DS
a la critique des theories de Vesse essentiae martelee dans les pages les
plus combatives du CST.
L ’anafogie
La theorie baconienne de l’analogie (DS, § 100-133; CST, § 129—
142) ne ressemble a aucune des theories “scolastiques” forgees dans
la seconde moitie du XIIIe siecle.31 Et pour cause: ce n’est pas, contrai-
rement a celle dite “aristotelico-thomiste”, une theorie de Yanalogie de
I’etre. Loin de remonter au seul Aristote, pour en assurer la provenance
historique, Bacon met un point d’honneur a se donner un autre pat­
ronage: celui du “ Timee de Ciceron”, qui, selon lui, a introduit le
terme grec analogia en latin sous le vocable de comparatio (CST, § 141).
Certes, c’est Aristote qui a foumi l’essentiel des materiaux necessaires
a la construction d’une theorie de l’analogie, mais, precise-t-il, dans
31 Cf. E.J. Ashworth, “Signification and Modes of Signifying in Thirteenth-Century
Logic: A preface to Aquinas on Analogy”, Medieval Philosophy and Theology, 1 (1991),
p. 39-67; “Analogy and Equivocation in Thirteenth-Century Logic: Aquinas in Con­
text”, Mediaeval Studies, 54 (1992), p. 94-135. Sur les sources de cette doctrine, cf.
C. Luna, “Commentaire”, in Simplicius, Commentaire sur les Categories, trad, commentee
sous la dir. de I. Hadot, fasc. Ill, Preambtde aux Categories, trad. Ph. Hoffmann, comment.
C. Luna (“Philosophia Antiqua”, LI/III), Leyde-New York-Copenhague-Cologne,
p. 84—94 et 153-159; A. de libera, “Les sources greco-arabes de la theorie medie-
vale de l’analogie de l’etre”, Les Etudes philosophiques, 3-4 (1989), p. 319-345.
ROGER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE 119
le CST, § 130, “il ne l’a jamais exposee lui-meme synthetiquement”
(:nunquam colligit omnes modos simul). C ’est done Bacon lui-meme qui
fait cette synthese, exposant une doctrine qui “n’offre pas de difficulte
particuliere” et presente une utilite certaine tant en theologie qu’en
philosophic.
La specificite de la theorie baconienne est d’integrer l’analogie a
l’analyse de l’equivocite ou homonymie.32 Sur les cinq modes d’equi-
vocite distingues par Bacon, l’analogie intervient quatre fois: la distinc­
tion entre analogic et homonymie ne conceme done que le cas de
l’homonymie pure (aequivocatio purissima), tous les autres cas d’homo-
nymie sont des cas d’analogie. Telle que l’expose Bacon, la theorie
de l’homonymie se laisse construire en utilisant deux outils: la notion
de diversitas et celle de convenientia existant entre les signifies des termes
consideres. II y a homonymie pure, quand il y a diversite absolue
entre les signifies d’un terme: c’est le cas, bien connu, des signifies
du mot “chien” (canis)—l’animal et la constellation celeste. Les termes
comme sanum et ens, en tant qu'ens est attribue aux dix categories,
relevent de l’homonymie relative, au sens ou leurs signifies respectifs
ont entre eux une convenientia de relation {in relatione). A cette homo­
nymie relative, Bacon ajoute l’homonymie du tout (aequivocatio totius),
fondee sur une convenance “partielle” (celle de la matiere et du
compose de matiere et de forme, qui tous deux re^oivent homo-
nymiquement le nom de “substance”); l’homonymie du genre (celle
existant entre les signifies specifiques d’un terme generique qui “com-
muniquent tous dans une meme nature originaire”, celle du genre,
mais qui presentent cette nature, “descendue en eux”, sous des “modes
d’etre differents”); l’homonymie minimale (celle que determine pour
un meme terme non une difference entre les signifies, mais une
difference entre les modes de signifier, comme pour le mot ens qui
est homonymiquement nom et participe present). L’interet de cette
classification, dont aucun element pris a part n’est original, reside
dans sa nature meme qui, d’un bout a l’autre, se veut purement
semantique— comme en temoigne la place meme que l’analyse occupe
dans le CST, ou elle intervient apres l’analyse des problemes poses
par la synonymie ou univocite.
Ce qui frappe done, dans la theorie de Bacon, c’est sa subordina­
tion de l’analogie a l’homonymie, qui la reinscrit dans l’horizon de
la distinction aristotelicienne entre synonymie et homonymie, sans
32 Cf. Th. Maloney, “Roger Bacon on Equivocation”, Vivarium, 22 (1984), p. 85-112.
 120 ALAIN DE LIBERA
lui conferer le statut quasi autonome d’intermediaire ou de tiers entre
synonymie pure et homonymie pure, qu’elle avait fini par prendre
dans la pensee scolastique: il n’y a analogic que sur la base d’une
homonymie, et Panalogie ne consiste que dans la mise en evidence
du type de comparatio ou proportio existant entre les signifies d’un terme
homonyme. Ainsi, ce qui compte ici en premier lieu, c’est l’analyse
de la signification, la distinction entre signifies ou entre signifies pre­
miers et seconds. Le probleme de ens est d’abord de determiner quel
est son signifie premier: Yentitas ou la res subiecta eniitati ou de deter­
miner quel type d’etre designe cette entitas— en l’occurrence, pour
Bacon, 1’“existence actuelle”. Ensuite, il va de soi que le terme ens
“convient plus proprement a la substance qu’aux accidents”. L’ana-
logie apparait alors comme un simple transfert au niveau de la pre­
dication, conforme a la regie, inspiree de Porphyre, qui veut que le
genre se predique d’abord de l’espece la plus elevee. C ’est pourquoi
Bacon fait de la predication analogique l’instrument specifique du
metaphysicien, reservant l’homonymie au physicien et la synonymie
ou univocite au logicien.
Les problemes metaphysiques sont des problemes de predication.
Le philosophe a done pour tache premiere d’elaborer une doctrine
d’ensemble de la signification et de la predication. C ’est sur ce point
que reside la grande innovation de Bacon. La philosophic n’est pas
la metaphysique—la metaphysique n’est qu’une partie de la philoso­
phic. Soucieux d’adopter un point de vue encore plus englobant,
permettant d’assurer une double regulation de la theologie et de la
philosophic, Bacon va done encore plus loin en affirmant que la theorie
de la signification et de la predication doit permettre de resoudre
toutes les fausses difficultes que la tradition a accumulees en ces deux
domaines. La singularity de la demarche de Bacon est de ne pas
opposer philosophic et theologie a partir de leurs principes propres
ou a partir de leur mode de scientificite. Bacon est etranger a la
confrontation entre theologie forte et theologie faible qui s’imposera
au XTVe siecle.33 Il ne cherche pas non plus a concilier les deux dem­
arches, pour resoudre sur le plan theorique un “conflit des facultes”.
33 Cf. L. Bianchi et E. Randi, “Le theologien et la petite vieille”, in Verites dissonantes.
Aristote a la fin du Mayen Age, (Vestigia, 11), Paris-Fribourg, Cerf-Editions universitaires
de Fribourg, 1993, p. 123-129. Sur la “theologie scientifique” et la “theologie faible”
au Moyen Age tardif, cf. M.-T. Fumagalli Beonio-Brocchieri, “Note sul concetto di
teologia in Durando di S. Porziano”, in L. Bianchi, ed., Filosofia e teologia nel Trecento.
Studi in ricordo di Eugenio Randi, (Federation Internationale des Instituts d’Etudes Medi-
evales, Textes et etudes du Moyen Age, 1), Louvain-La-Neuve, 1994, p. 57-63.
ROGER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE 121
Il s’efforce de fournir un instrument permettant de proceder scien-
tifiquement dans les deux registres. Cet instrument etant l’analyse du
langage, on peut done soutenir, sans paradoxe ni anachronisme, qu’il
y a chez lui une orientation “analytique”, inseparable d’un projet
intellectuel effectivement reformateur. C ’est sur ce point que nous
insisterons ici.
La reforme logique du discours
Dans le GST, consacre a l’elucidation des causes generates et specia­
l s des erreurs theologiques et philosophiques, Bacon soutient que la
principale des causes speciales d’erreur a trait a la semantique. Enon-
gant ses ressorts essentiels, il est ainsi conduit a critiquer les doctrines
de la reference soutenues par ses contemporains. Les deux aspects
majeurs de sa controverse concernent, l’un, l’ontologie, avec la criti­
que des doctrines de l’etre d’essence et de l’etre habituel, l’autre la
linguistique et la philosophic du langage, avec une reformulation de
la notion traditionnelle de l’“imposition” ouvrant sur une approche
pragmatique du langage et de la signification.34 La premiere discussion
conduit Bacon a prendre position sur Interpretation logique de pro­
positions a sujet vide comme Cesar est un hommef5 la seconde, a deve-
lopper a fond les consequences pragmatiques de la these de la liberte
du locuteur dans l’acte d’“imposition des voix”.
L’analyse des “deux principes communs et absolument necessaires
a la logique et a la metaphysique, principes de l’ignorance desquels
decoulent les erreurs les plus graves en toute espece de dispute, qu’elle
soit theologique ou philosophique” est l’occasion d’une des plus vigou-
reuses polemiques intellectuelles du Moyen Age, nommement dirigee
contre le Franciscain d’Oxford Richard Rufus de Comouailles,36 accuse
d’avoir “dans sa maladie et sa demence sans limites” introduit en
34 Sur ce theme, cf. A. de Libera, “Roger Bacon et le probleme de Yappellatio
unxoocd', in English Logic and Semantics. From the End of the Twelfth Century to the Time of
Ockham and Burleigh., be. cit., p. 193-234.
35 Cf. A. de Libera, Cesar et le Phenix, Distinctwnes et sophismata parisiens.. ., qui
contient une anthologie de textes anti-baconiens.
36 Cf. J. Pinborg, “Magister Abstractionum”, CIMAGL, 18 (1976), p. 1-4, du
meme, “The English Contribution to Logic before Ockham”, Synthese 40 (1979),
19-42; P.O. Lewry, O.P., “Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric 1220-1320”, in 7 he Early
Oxford Schools (The History of the University of Oxford, I), ed. J.I. Catto, Oxford,
Clarendon Press, 1984, p. 401-433. Cf., en outre, P. Raedts, Richard Rufus of Corn­
wall and the Tradition of Oxford Theology, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1987, p. 107-113.
 122 ALAIN DE LIBERA
Angleterre les deux theses qui, selon Bacon, ruinent toute metaphy­
sique et toute theologie.37 A ces deux theses Bacon oppose deux
principes dont il revendique plus ou moins la paternite: [1] “un son
vocal ne peut signifier quelque chose de commun, univoque a l’etre
et au non-etre” et [2] “un son vocal peut perdre sa signification—
principe au contraire duquel tout le monde ou presque adhere non
seulement avec obstination, mais de la maniere la plus obstinee qui
soit, au point de forger d’innombrables erreurs et d’execrables here­
sies”. Selon Bacon, “c’est parce qu’elle ignore ces deux principes que
la foule tient que Cesar mort est un homme, qu’un homme mort est
un animal, que le Christ est reste homme durant les trois jours qu’il a
passes au tombeau— et une infinite d’autres theses, absolument faus-
ses et parfaitement stupides au sujet de la restriction ou de l’amplifi-
cation de la reference dans les propositions assertoriques, ou encore
du statut du necessaire et du contingent dans les propositions modales”.
CEuvre de polemiste et de doctrinaire, le CST a lance nombre d’idees
que le nominalisme du XIVe siecle a popularisees: une semantique
rigoureusement extensionnelle, une ontologie du singulier, une doctrine
des signes et de la signification naturels, une theorie de la connotation.38
Le CST peut done etre en un sens considere comme le terreau de
l’occamisme, mais il est plus legitime de ne pas separer les avancees
de Bacon dans le domaine theorique de l’intention generale— refor-
matrice et ecclesiologique—qui les a inspirees, et plus legitime en­
core de maintenir ces innovations dans le cadre meme ou elles ont
ete formulees. Car Bacon n ’innove pas sur tous les points et il se
confronte a un univers de discours qu’il n’a pas cree.39 C ’est particu-
lierement evident pour les deux secteurs de son activite les plus remar­
ques par la critique modeme: la formulation d’une “nouvelle” theorie
du signe et la critique de la theorie de l’etre de l’essence (esse essentiae).
37 Sur l’arriere-plan oxonien des discussions baconiennes, cf. P.O. Lewry, O.P.,
“Oxford Logic 1250—1275: Nicholas and Peter of Cornwall on Past and Future
Realities”, in The Rise of British Logic, ed. cit., p. 19—62.
38 Sur la semantique de Bacon, cf. Th. Maloney, “Roger Bacon on the Significatum
of Words”, in L. Brind’Amour et E. Vance, ed., Archeobgie du signe, be. cit., p. 187—
211; K.M. Fredborg, “Roger Bacon on Impositio vocis ad significandum”, in English Logk
and Semantics. From the End of the Twelfth Century to the Time of Ockham and Burleigh,
be. cit., p. 167-191.
39 Cf. S. Ebbesen & J. Pinborg, “Studies in the Logical Writings Attributed to
Boethius de Dacia”, CIMAGL, 3 (1970), p. 2-12.
ROGER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE 123
Nous ne reviendrons pas ici sur la discussion de l’etre d’essence.
Les elements du dossier sont trop connus. Il suffit de rappeler que,
pour refuter entierement la premiere “erreur” semantique affirmant
qu’un mot peut designer quelque chose d’univoque a l’etre et au
neant, Bacon examine successivement trois doctrines: la premiere
soutient que les noms ne sont pas imposes a des particuliers existants
et presents (directement saisis par la perception sensorielle), mais a
leur essence, sans indication de temps. La deuxieme affirme que les
noms signifient des choses (res), non des essences, mais qu’ils les
signifient quant a l’etre de leur essence (ou quant a leur etre d’essence),
non du point de vue de leur etre actuel limite au present de la
perception. La troisieme soutient que les noms signifient des choses,
mais du point de vue d’une forme appelee etre habituel, qui est
commune aux trois dimensions du temps et a toute chose, que cette
chose ait un etre actuel ou qu’elle n’ait pas d’etre actuel. On a beau-
coup ecrit sur cette batterie de critiques: on a tente d’identifier les
auteurs vises par Bacon;40 d’elucider sur ce point le role de Richard
de Cornouailles,41 nomme expressement par le GST; de rapprocher
la theorie de Yesse essentiae et de la theorie avicennienne de l’indifference
de (’essence de la modeme theorie meinongienne de l’independance
du Sosein par rapport au Sein*2 On ne reviendra pas ici sur ces ele­
ments. Il nous importe plutot de souligner le principe de la reponse
baconienne: la nouvelle doctrine de l’imposition des noms a signifier,
qui lui permet de rejeter comme vaines toutes les tentatives faites
pour penser la relation des mots, des concepts et des choses en fai-
sant abstraction de l’acte originaire d’imposition au benefice de la
signification. C ’est done sur cet acte et l’analyse des conditions qui
l’entourent que nous nous attarderons pour conclure.
40 Sur les positions des contemporains de Bacon, cf. S. Ebbesen, “Talking about
what is no more. Texts by Peter of Cornwall (?), Richard of Clive, Simon of
Faversham, and Radulphus Brito. A Supplement to CIMAGL 3”, CIMAGL, 55 (1987),
p. 135-168. Cf., egalement, P.O. Lewry O.P., “Nicholas and Peter of Cornwall on
Past and Future Realities”, in The Rise of British Logic. . ., p. 19-62.
41 Cf. S. Ebbesen, “Roger Bacon and the Fools of His Times”, CIMAGL, 3 (1970),
p. 40~44.
42 Cf. A. de Libera, “Roger Bacon et la reference vide. Sur quelques antecedents
medievaux du paradoxe de Meinong”, in Lectionum varietates. Hommage a Paul Vignaux
(1904-1987), (Etudes de philosophic medievale, LXV), Edite par J. Jolivet, Z. Kaluza,
A. de Libera, Paris, Vrin, 1991, p. 85-120. Cf., en outre, La querelle des unwersaux. De
Pbton a b fin du Moyen Age (Des Travaux), Paris, Ed. du Seuil, 1996.
 124 ALAIN DE LIBERA
Theorie du signe et connotation
La semiotique de Bacon a longtemps ete consideree comme une
innovation extraordinaire, sans precedent dans le monde medieval.43
Bacon lui-meme a contribue a la legende en soulignant qu’il avait
forge l’essentiel de sa doctrine avant meme d ’en avoir retrouve les
rudiments dans sa lecture d’Augustin. Que Bacon ait decouvert sa
semantique sans avoir lu une ligne d’Augustin est peu vraisemblable.
Des les SD (dans le manuscrit de Seville), en effet, expliquant les
divers modes de la “supposition simple”, il renvoie au De Dialectica,
en tout cas a Augustin, pour plus de details (§ 421-422): “Simplex
suppositio est quando terminus non stat pro persona alia sive pro
inferiori aliquo, sed pro voce, ut ‘Homo est vox’; vel significato, ut
‘Homo est dignissima creaturarum’; vel pro voce significante, ut ‘Homo
est nomen’; vel pro aliqua proprietate vocis, ut ‘Homo est dissyllabum’,
‘Homo est pes trochaeus’; vel quantum ad proprietates significati, ut
‘Homo est universale’, ‘Homo est species’, et huiusmodi alia multa.
Et quod sic diversimode et multis aliis modis nomen possit accipi,
plane demonstrat Augustinus in fine suae <Dmlecticae>, et postea agetur
de hoc.” Mais cette relation a Augustin, evidente, n ’est pas le seul
probleme qui se pose a l’historien: Bacon ne construit pas sa seman­
tique dans un vide theorique ambiant. I. Rosier a bien montre que
la plupart des classifications semiotiques employees par Bacon se
retrouvent dans des textes contemporains comme ceux d’Henri de
Gand.44 Laissant de cote la question de l’originalite de la grille em­
ployee par Bacon, nous privilegierons certaines de ses implications
dans le domaine de la psychologie.
La distinction porteuse de la typologie baconienne des signes passe,
comme on le sait, entre les signa naturalia et les signa ordinata ab anima
et ex intentione animae. Cette distinction correspond plus ou moins etroi-
tement a la difference tracee par Augustin entre signa naturalia et
signa data: on sait que pour l’eveque d’Hippone, “les signes naturels
sont ceux qui, sans intention ni desir de signifier, font connaitre d’eux-
43 Sur la theorie baconienne du signe, cf. Th. Maloney, “The Semiotics of Roger
Bacon”, Mediaeval Studies, 45 (1983), p. 120-154. Sur la semiotique medievale, cf.
U. Eco et C. Marmo, ed., On the medieval theories o f signs, Amsterdam, John Benja­
mins, 1989. Cf., aussi, l’ouvrage fondamental d’l. Rosier, La parole comme acte. Sur la
grammaire et la semantique au X IIIesiecle (Sic et Non), Paris, Vrin, 1994.
44 Cf. I. Rosier, “Henri de Gand, la Dialectica d’Augustin, et l’imposition des noms
divins”, a paraitre dans Studi e Testi per la Storia della Filosofia Medievale.
ROGER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE 125
memes quelque chose d’autre en plus de ce qu’ils sont eux-memes”
c’est comme signe naturel que la fumee signale le feu (“car elle le
fait sans le vouloir, mais nous savons, par experience, en observant
et en remarquant les choses que meme si la fumee apparait seule, il
y a du feu dessous”); au contraire, les signa data sont ceux que “tous
les etres vivants se font les uns aux autres pour montrer, autant qu’ils
le peuvent, les mouvements de leur ame, c’est-a-dire tout ce qu’ils
sentent et tout ce qu’ils pensent”. La typologie de Bacon depasse,
toutefois la bipartition augustinienne, en ce que, sous les deux espe-
ces des signa naturalia et des signa data, elle coordonne en fait deux
semiotiques distinctes: la semiotique des signes naturels selon Augus­
tin, d’une part, la semiotique generate des signes naturels et des signes
conventionnels selon Aristote, d’autre part. La principal originalite
de Bacon par rapport a Augustin est done de distinguer deux types
de signes naturels, elle est ensuite de lester d’emprunts a Aristote la
theorie augustinienne meme des signes naturels. Presentee sous forme
de tableau, la typologie du DS distingue:
1. 1. qui inherent autre chose necessairement ou
probablement
1. Naturalia — 1.2. en vertu de la conformite d’une chose a
autre chose
1.3. les effets par rapport a leur cause
signa
2.1. ad placitum et ex proposito cum
deliberatione rationis et electione voluntatis
2 . Ordinata
naturaliter, sine deliberatione rationis et sine
electione voluntatis nec ad placitum nec e proposito
quodam instinctu naturali, impetu naturae
Comme on le voit, Bacon distingue deux sortes de signes naturels:
les signes naturels1(= SN1ou Su_s) et les signes naturels2 (= SN2 ou
S22). Sur les trois types de SN1distingues dans le DS, les deux pre­
miers sont empruntes a Aristote, le premier type vient des Analytiques
et de la Rhetorique;45 le second type est inspire de passages du De
45 Cf. l’analyse du syllogisme rhetorique (enthymeme) et la definition des notions
 126 ALAIN DE LIBERA
interpretatione et du De anima; assez paradoxalement done, dans cette
division tripartite placee sous le patronage d ’Augustin, seul le troi-
sieme type de SN1 est emprunte a Feveque d’Hippone: celui de la
relation de cause a effet materialisee dans l’exemple du rapport fumee/
feu.46 Dans le DS, chaque type de SN1 est illustre de la maniere
suivante:
Necessaire: habere lactis copiam
signum partus in muliere
Passe \
'Probable: Terram esse madidam signum
pluviae preteritae
^Necessaire: cantum galli signum horae noctis
Present/
'Probable: Esse matrem signum dilectionis. Esse
errabundum multum de nocte
signum latronis.
'Necessaire: aurora signum ortus solis
' Futur •
Probable: Rubedo in vespere signum serenitatis
in crastino
Imagines, picturae
-Vestigium signum animalis.
■Fumus signum ignis.
de “vraisemblable”, de signe et d’indice dans les Premiers analytiques, II, 27, 70a 1 sqq.
et Rhetorique I, 2, 1357a22 sqq. et 1357b 10-24. L’exemple du lait matemel illustre
la premiere figure du syllogisme rhetorique (en Darii): “Toute femme qui a du lait
(B) a enfante (A); cette femme-ci (C) a du h it (B); cette femme-ci (C) a enfante (A).
46 On sait que le rapport fumee/feu appartient a la theorie “dogmatique” (i.e.
stoi'eienne) du signe, comme le confirme le temoignage des Esquisses Pyrrhmiennes de
Sextus Empiricus. La fumee y est definie comme un “signe de rappel” ou “comme-
m oratif’, qui est signe du feu, “parce qu’elle a ete observee en meme temps que la
chose qu’elle signifie”. Le signe de rappel s’oppose au “signe d’indication” ou “reve-
lateur” “qui n’a pas ete observe en meme que la chose dont il est le signe”, mais
que “sa propre nature ou constitution indique”. Cfi, sur ce point, Sextus Empiricus,
Esquisses Pyrrhoniennes, II, chap. X, § 97-102. O n notera que l’exemple du lait est
analyse au § 106, du chap. XI: “la proposition unefemme a du lait est l’indicatrice de
elle a congu” dans l’inference: “Si une femme a du lait, elle a con^u.”
ROGER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE 127
Telles que les definit Aristote dans le premier chapitre du De inter­
pretatione., les relations entre les mots, les concepts et les choses s’arti-
culent autour de deux relations: la relation conventionnelle des mots
et des concepts, la relation naturelle des concepts et des choses, l’une
variable, qui explique la diversite des idiomes, l’autre invariable, qui
rend possible une grammaire universelle des affects. Dans ce dispo-
sitif, que l’on peut representer sous la forme d’un triangle ayant pour
sommet les concepts,47 la relation entre les mots et les choses est
done indirecte: les mots designent des concepts qui, eux-memes, repre­
sented des choses—plus exactement: “les sons emis par la voix”, les
“mots paries”, “sont les symboles” ou “signes immediats des etats de
Fame”, tandis que les “etats de Fame sont les images des choses”. II
n ’y a pas de relation directe entre les mots et les choses.48
Se preoccupant de Finstitution du langage, Bacon soutient une
theorie radicalement distincte de celle d5Aristote: Fimposition des “sons
emis par la voix” concerne les choses, non les etats de Fame. Le mot
Nicolas n’est pas impose a ma representation de Nicolas, mais a Nicolas
lui-meme. Contrairement a la semantique de la signification, qui selon
47 O n peut aussi penser a un rectangle ou a un carre, si Ton ajoute aux mots
paries les mots ecrits, comme le fait Aristote quand il precise que “les mots ecrits
sont les symboles des mots emis par la voix”. C ’est d’ailleurs a ces quatre entites—
litterae, voces, animae passiones et res—et a ce dispositif carre que s’attachent evi-
demment les exegees du “Liber Peryermenias”. Cf. e.g. Pierre d’Hibernie: “Quattuor
sunt ex quibus contingit habere causas constituentes quamlibet interpretationem, et
sunt duo extrema et alia duo media: extrema sunt que scribuntur et res, duo media
sunt voces et intellectus” (texte cite par R.-A. Gauthier, in Thomas d’Aquin, Expositio
Libri Peryermenias, ed. Leonine, t. I* 1, Rome-Paris, 1989, p. 9 ad 21. Pratiquement,
toutefois, les litterae sont laissees de cote dans la suite de l’analyse, comme le remar-
que Ammonius, “tamquam nichil necessarium habentes ad inmediatam rerum expres-
sionem” (ibid., p. 10, ad 49-55).
48 C ’est ce que souligne clairement Thomas d’Aquin. Les “sons vocaux ne peu-
vent signifier immediatement les choses memes” (“non potest esse quod significent
immediate ipsas res”), comme le prouve leur maniere meme de signifier (“ut ex
modo siginficandi apparet”): en effet, le nom homme signifie la nature humaine “abstrac­
tion faite des singuliers”, il ne peut signifier immediatement un homme singulier. Le
caractere abstrait de la signification explique l’invention des Idees chez Platon. Mais,
joint cette fois au rejet de l’existence reelle d’entites universelles, il explique aussi le
caractere necessairement indirect de la relation semantique chez Aristote: “Unde
Platonici posuerunt quod significaret ipsam ydeam hominis separatam; set, quia hec
secundum suam abstractionem non subsistit realiter secundum sentenciam Aristotilis,
set est in solo intellectu, ideo necesse fuit Aristotili dicere quod voces significant
intellectus conceptiones immediate, et eis mediantibus res.” Cf. Thomas d’Aquin,
Expositio Libri Peryermenias, I, 2 (ad 16a3-5); ed. Gauthier, p. 11, 100-112. La these
de Thomas figure deja chez Boece lui-meme et Ammonius (textes cites par Gauthier,
loc. cit., p. 10 ad 97-112).
128 ALAIN DE LIBERA
les options philosophiques peut eventuellement faire place a une
dimension intensionnelle, une semantique de l’imposition ne peut etre
qu’une semantique de la reference et cette semantique de la refe­
rence ne peut etre qu’extensionnelle: pour Bacon les noms ne sau-
raient etre donnes originairement a ces fictions theoriques que sont
les essences, les quiddites abstraites, les etres d’essence et autres etres
d’habitude. Dans ces conditions, les phenomenes psycho-linguistiques,
la ressemblance entre la chose et l’etat mental alleguee par Aristote,
mais aussi la relation du son vocal et de l’etat mental, assumee par
les notions de “symbole” et de “signe immediat” chez Tricot, de
“rcota” chez Boece, demandent a etre etudies pour eux-memes et fixes
epistemologiquement—ce que ne font ni le De interpretatione ni meme
le De anima.
La nouveaute remarquable de la philosophic de Bacon est de donner
une theorie semiotique precise des phenomenes psycho-linguistiques.49
Le fondement de cette nouvelle doctrine reside dans la coordination
explicite des mecanismes de la signification “institute” (type S21) et
de la signification naturelle (type S1•'•) au sein d’une meme theorie de
la signification, de l’imposition et de la reference. Cette coordination
est rendue possible par une mise en evidence du phenomene de la
connotation. Le principe est simple: selon Bacon, un nom qui signifie
ad placitum (= S21), signifie seulement la chose a laquelle il a ete
impose. II ne peut done referer (“etre mis pour”, stare pro) autre chose.
“Neanmoins, il signifie aussi ses connotata en tant que signe naturel
du premier mode (= S1J ), dans la mesure ou les realties connotees
sont reliees au nom qui les connote par une consequence naturelle
et necessaire.”
L’ensemble du processus est bien decrit dans le DS, qui, pour la
premiere fois, foumit une theorie de la signification secondaire ou
connotation qui connecte explicitement la signification ad placitum et la
signification naturelle de type S11. Le fondement est clairement enonce
au § 102, ou l’ensemble de la reflexion est place sous le patronage
de la notion d’analogie: il y a fonctionnement analogique lorsqu’un
mot “donne a comprendre une pluralite de choses auxquelles il n ’a
pas ete impose” ou plus exactement “plusieurs choses parmi lesquel-
les une seule a re$u l’imposition”. Autrement dit: dans la plupart des
49 Cf., sur ce point, les remarques pionnieres de J. Pinborg, “Roger Bacon on
Signs: A Newly Recovered Part of the Opus Maius”, Miscellanea Mediaevalia, 13,
Berlin-New York, Walter de Gruyter, 1981, p. 403-412.
ROGER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE 129
cas, un mot “qui a re^u une seule imposition sous un seul acte de
signifier” se rapporte quand meme a une pluralite de choses: ces choses
auxquelles, precisement, se rapporte la chose a laquelle il a ete impose.
Simplement le mecanisme psycho-semiotique n’est pas le meme: “le
mot signifie ad placitum pour la chose a laquelle il est impose”, “mais
il signifie naturellement et dans le premier mode du signe naturel les
choses telles qu’elles sont comprises a travers son premier signifie”.
C ’est la, done, qu’intervient la notion non-aristotelicienne de signifi­
cation naturelle: le mecanisme est d’ordre inferentiel et bien deli-
mite, les signifies secondaires etant compris par une consequence
naturelle et necessaire a travers le terme impose et, plus precisement
encore, “par la raison du signifie de ce terme”. Le rapport de conse­
quence se laisse alors ainsi formuler: le consequent naturel est com­
pris dans l’antecedent par la raison de son signifie ou, ce qui revient
au meme, “un mot signifie de nombreuses choses auxquelles il n’est
pas impose, puisqu’il signifie toutes les choses avec lesquelles la chose
ayant regu 1’imposition possede un rapport essentiel de par la force
de son signifie”. Bref, “en meme temps que, parce que, tant que et
lorsque le mot homme signifie ce a quoi il fut impose, a savoir telle
espece d’animal, il signifie aussi l’animal et ce qui est capable de rire
et toutes les autres choses avec lesquelles cette chose signifiee est dans
un rapport essentiel de par la force du signifie.”
Le phenomene decrit par Bacon depasse la simple “signification
par accompagnement” analysee par Avicenne et Ghazali. Tout en se
recommandant de ces grands ancetres, Bacon s’efforce de depasser
les exemples avances par eux: “le fait qu’un toit signifie une paroi et
une fondation” ou “le fait que le nom de n’importe quelle chose qui
a un rapport essentiel a une autre chose signifie cette autre chose”—
relations purement topiques, limitees a un stock d’exemples tradi-
tionnels: “le nom d’un relatif qui signifie l’autre <relatif> ou le nom
du tout qui signifie les parties”. Il commence done par analyser sept
modes selon lesquels un mot peut signifier une chose a laquelle il n’a
pas ete impose. Il enumere ainsi: (1) le nom d’un non-etant, qui
“donne toujours a comprendre l’etant dont il dit la privation”, puis-
que le non-etre ou neant “ne peut ni etre nomme ni etre signifie si
ce n’est par rapport a l’etre”; (2) les noms divins relatifs (par oppo­
sition au nom absolu de Dieu), qui impliquent les creatures en vertu
d’une relation “qui est dans la creature comme dans un sujet mais se
termine seulement en Dieu comme en un objet” (e.g. “maitre”, “crea-
teur”, “cause premiere”, “gouverneur”, “conservateur”, “recteur du
130 ALAIN DE LIBERA
monde”, etc.); (3) les noms des creatures, qui tous, relatifs ou absolus,
donnent a comprendre le createur; (4) les noms des creatures en tant
qu’ils “se signifient mutuellement” (e.g. le nom d’un accident, qui
donne a comprendre une substance, “puisqu’il ne peut ni exister sans
une substance, ni etre compris, defini ou nomme”, ou le nom d’une
substance, qui donne a comprendre un accident); (5) le nom d’un uni-
versel qui “donne a comprendre un particulier vague” (e.g. “Phomme,
done un homme”) ou “determine, mais seulement en disjonction”
(e.g. “Phomme, done Socrate ou Platon, ou . . . etc.”); (6) le nom d’une
partie essentielle et principale d’un tout, qui en signifie necessaire-
ment une autre, ou, pour mieux dire, toute autre (les exemples d’Avi-
cenne et de Ghazali, auxquels s’ajoute celui du coeur “qui signifie la
tete, le foie et l’estomac et toutes les parties principales de l’animal”,
chacune de ces parties “signifiant n’importe quelle autre”); (7) les
noms des correlatifs. Toutefois, ce n’est pas dans cette typologie que
Bacon pousse la fine pointe de sa theorie: e’est en appliquant sa theorie
de l’implied-meaning aux fonctionnements psycho-linguistiques.
Pour aller a l’essentiel, on soulignera done que le franciscain
d’Oxford etend la connexion de la signification S21 et de la signifi­
cation S1: (1) a la relation du son vocal a sa propre “forme” (species)
dans 1’ame (articulation du mot parle a son image acoustique); (2) a
la relation du son vocal a la forme de son referent dans 1’ame (associa­
tion d’une image acoustique a une image mentale du referent); (3) a
la relation de l’image mentale du referent au referent lui-meme. La
necessite d’une combinaison de S21 avec S11 plutot qu’avec S12 (ou
5 12 et S13 dans le DS) est expressement formulee dans le cas de (2)
(DS, § 165); en revanche, S21 se combine a la fois avec S11, S12 et
5 13 dans le cas de (1). Cette discrepance entre les deux fonctionne­
ments s’explique aisement; elle n’en eclipse pas pour autant le phe-
nomene central, qui est que tous les mots prononces ont en commun,
quel que soit leur fonctionnement, de combiner les significations S21
et S11. On donne ici les deux principaux passages touchant les rela­
tions (1) et (2): (1) “Le mot prononce est un signe de sa propre forme
dans Paine, mais seulement un signe naturel, et non pas un signe
institue par 1’arne [. . .] Et il est evident qu’il en est un signe naturel
dans le triple genre du signe naturel. En effet, il infere necessaire-
ment sa forme dans 1’ame du locuteur, il est forme et configure d’apres
elle, et il est l’effet de celle-ci” (DS, § 18). (2) “Un mot significatif ad
placitum prononce significativement infere necessairement la forme de
son referent dans 1’arne et l’habitus <cognitif qui lui correspond>
ROGER BACON ET LA LOGIQUE 131
[. . .] Un son vocal signifiant une chose ad placitum est un signe naturel
de la forme de cette chose existant dans 1’ame, et cela dans le pre­
mier mode du signe naturel.50 [. . .] Il importe que le mot signifie la
forme et l’habitus non comme un signe donne par 1’ame [...], puis­
qu’il ne les signifie ni naturellement [au sens d’Aristote] ni ad placitum,
mais comme un signe naturel. Et il est impossible qu’il les signifie
selon le deuxieme ou le troisieme mode du signe naturel, puisque le
mot n’est pas configure d’apres la forme de cette chose, mais d’apres
sa propre forme, afin de pouvoir en etre le signe, et puisqu’il n’est pas
non plus un effet de la forme de cette chose. C ’est pourquoi il importe
qu’il en soit le signe uniquement dans le premier mode du signe
naturel” (DS, § 165).
Place au carrefour de la nature (mecanismes psycho-linguistiques)
et de la liberte (donation de sens), la semiotique de Bacon combine
de maniere originale la theorie des inferences naturelles avec celle de
Pimpositio vocis ad significandum: le volontarisme linguistique n’est pas
borne par les relations inferentielles—la sphere de l’imposition est
fondee sur le jeu articulant les representations de mots et les repre­
sentations de choses, elle ne se laisse ni reduire a lui ni contraindre
par lui.
Cette doctrine du signe a done une multitude d’applications pos­
sibles. La plus connue est celle de la reimposition ou renovation de
l’imposition qui permet a Bacon d’expliquer comment un mot peut
perdre sa signification originaire lorsqu’il perd son objet de refer­
ence sans que, pour autant, la communication sensee entre individus
soit compromise. Le principe du bapteme, qui regie la conception
baconienne de l’imposition, et qui veut que donner un nom a une
chose soit obligatoirement donner un nom a une chose presente et
existante tombant sous le sens, ne peut etre complete par le principe
de reimposition, qui veut que tout emploi d’un mot, dans une situation
linguistique concrete, passe par une reimposition, il ne peut done etre
un principe de communication effective que dans la mesure ou les
divers partenaires de communication, le locuteur et l’auditeur, utilisent
les signes de la meme maniere, selon les memes lois psychologiques
et semantiques. Dire, comme le fait Bacon, que nous redonnons sens
50 Cf., dans le meme sens, Roger Bacon, CST, ed. Maloney, § 60: “Sed quia
species rei et habitus cognitivus de re sequuntur naturali consequentia ad rem et
nomen [.. .] ideo vox rei imposita comparatur ad speciem et habitum sicut vox
significativa naturaliter, et primo modo signi naturalis [. . .].”
132 ALAIN DE LIBERA
aux mots a chaque fois que nous les employons, que nous fixons leur
reference a chaque occasion d’enonciation, ne peut apparaitre comme
une theorie raisonnable que si cette reimposition obeit a des meca-
nismes psychologiques inconscients, permettant a tout sujet parlant
d’affronter de la meme maniere les contextes d’enonciation linguisti-
ques et extralinguistiques des phrases. O r c’est bien ce qu’affirme
Bacon: l’activite de reimposition s’effectue de maniere inconsciente,
“dans un temps non sensible a 1’ame”, par une sorte d’adaptation
spontanee, plutot que volontaire au sens de “deliberee”. Sans etre
capable de la conceptualiser dans le detail, Bacon met en place les
conditions d’une analyse de cette reimposition spontanee, quand il
decrit la maniere dont se structurent au niveau psychologique les
phenomenes d’implied-meaning.
C ’est done autour d’une meme difficulte, celle de la generatio sermonis
que gravite toute la pensee logique et logico-semantique de Bacon:
c’est elle qui est approchee dans les premieres elaborations de la
theorie de Yinclusio foumies par la SSD, mais c’est elle aussi qu’aborde
le DS en theorisant les mecanismes inferentiels existant au niveau
psycho-logique entre representations de choses et representations de
mots. Deplacer la limite entre nature et convention en la faisant passer
a l’interieur meme des processus psychologiques, au lieu de la laisser
au dehors, dans le face a face du signe naturel et du signe conven-
tionnel au sens d’Aristote, telle est la grande nouveaute de l’appro-
che baconienne de la signification. II serait exagere de dire que cette
approche aboutit a une theorie veritable, complete et structuree. C ’est
plutot une serie d’esquisses et de trouvailles limitees, mais qui toutes
convergent vers un meme probleme, celui du rapport entre pensee,
langage et communication—un probleme que Bacon ne pouvait cer-
tainement pas resoudre avec les instruments dont il disposait, mais
qu’il a, plus que beaucoup de ses contemporains, puissamment contri-
bue a faire eclore.
6. ROGER BACON ON RHETORIC AND POETICS
Jeremiah Hackett
Although Roger Bacon claims to have written a treatise on the compo­
sition of rhetorical arguments, such a work has not been identified.
He does, however, offer many comments on rhetoric and poetics in
his later works, and from these we can reconstruct the outline of his
theory. Moreover, in his Opus maius, he gives us a practical example
of how such a Rhetoric should be accomplished. From the very
beginning of the opening polemic in Opus maius I, he connects the
study of wisdom and language with the theme of moral philosophy.1
In Opus maius II, he explicitly connects his doctrine of truth with the
theme of moral wisdom. His treatise on Semiotics in Opus maius III
might be seen as a contribution to the construction of a rhetorical
argument about language. In the Communia mathematica he explicidy
affirrps that in logicalibus he composed a treatise on rhetoric.2 Further,
in many texts, Opus maius, Opus tertium and especially in the Communia
mathematica, Bacon connects the rhetorical and poetic arguments to
Mathematics and Music, and he argues that without some knowledge
of these, a person will not understand rhetoric or poetics.
The intention of this paper is to present the main characteristics
of Bacon’s views on Rhetoric and Poetics. A corollary of the paper
will be the suggestion that Bacon’s views did not die with him in
1 For a recent study of Bacon’s theory of language, see Irene Rosier, La parole
comme acte: Sur la grammaire et la semantique au XIIF siecle, Paris: J. Vrin, 1994. See
p. 23: Les arts du language ou trivium se partagent, au Moyen Age, l’analyse du
language: la grammaire s’occupe de la correction des enonces, la logique de leur
verite, la rhetorique de leur elegance. Le parent pauvre, au X IIF siecle, est sans
conteste la rhetorique, du moins a rUniversite. Les prerogatives de la grammaire et
de la logique, par contre, sont clairement hierarchisees: un enonce doit d’abord etre
construit, correct et acheve avant d’etre susceptible d’un jugement de verite.
2 Communia mathematica, ed. Steele (Opera, XVI, p. 17): Et jam composui de eo
tractatum in logicalibus, et ostendi quod ei proprium est.
Already in 1250 in his De ortu scientiarum, Robert Kilwardby presents a compari­
son of Rhetoric and Logic. As part of Logic, it is a linguistic science which deals
with enthymemes and with the construction of public speech and the goal of this
science is ethics. Already in Kilwardby one finds a distinction between the theory of
rhetoric as part of Logic, and the uses of rhetoric in civil science. Here, as in gram­
mar and logic, Bacon is indebted to Robert Kilwardby.
 134 JEREMIAH HACKETT
obscurity. It will be argued that the seed which Bacon planted grew
in the 1270-80’s in the first Latin Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle
by Aegidius Romanus (Giles of Rome).
Bacon differs from the common view of philosophers in the 13th
century concerning the neat division of the Trivium: Grammar, Logic,
Rhetoric.3 His rejection of the trivium is part of his general criticism
of the new curriculum at Paris, a system which he rejects due to his
adherence to example of Robert Grosseteste and Adam Marsh. The
omission of Rhetoric and Poetics from the ordinary courses at Paris
meant that in practice students were primarily introduced to gram­
mar and formal Logic.4 O f course, at times Rhetoric, that is Ciceronian
Rhetoric, could be taught as an occasional course, but it meant in
effect that Grammar and Logic would be the dominant subjects. Now,
3 O n Bacon’s division and the medieval Trivium see P. Osmund Lewry O.P.,
“Rhetoric at Paris and Oxford in the Mid-Thirteenth century,” Rhetorica, 1 (Spring
1983; Ibid., “Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric 1220-1320,” in J.I. Catto ed. The Early
Oxford Schools [The History of the University of Oxford], Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984,
401-434; see esp. 431-33: “Rhetoric was the neglected member of the Trivium. . . .”
For Bacon’s own summary of his criticism of the normal division of the Trivium,
see Opus tertium, ed. Brewer, 307-8; the following from the Communia mathematica,
p. 64 is Bacon’s view: rhetorica enim docens composicionem argumenti rhetorici est
pars Logice, ut patuit in predictis. Et Rhetorica utens hoc argumento est pars Moralis
philosophic, ut in Metaphysicis et in Moralibus demonstravi; et ideo multum errat
vulgus quando ponit Rhetoricam in divisione contra Logicam et Grammaticam. Simi­
liter Poetica, docens argumentum poeticum, est pars Logice, et ea que utitur tali
argumento est pars Moralis philosophic, ut demonstravi suis locis, et ideo solo due,
scilicet, Grammatica et Logica computantur preter dictas scientias has duas de quibus
iam expositum est quomodo abstrahunt et quomodo non.
For a seminal essay which discusses some of the problems about Aristotle’s Rhetoric
in the Middle Ages, see James J. Murphy, “Aristotle’s Rhetoric in the Middle Ages,”
The Quarterly Journal of Speech 52 (1966), 109-115. See Paul Oskar Kristeller,
Renaissance Thought and its Sources, New York, 1979 . . . and ibid., “Rhetoric in
Medieval and Renaissance Culture,” in James J. Murphy ed. Renaissance Eloquence,
Berkeley, University of California Press, 1983, 1-19. For the authoritative study of
the effects of Arabic philosophy on medieval rhetoric, see D.L. Black, Logic and Aristotle's
Rhetoric and Poetics in Medieval Arabic Philosophy, Leiden-New York-Koln, E.J. Brill,
1994 (Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science: Texts and Studies, Ed. H. Daiber
and D. Pingree). See her “Traditions and Transformations in the Medieval Approach
to Rhetoric and Related Linguistic Arts,” in Claude Lafleur, ed., L'enseignement de la
philosophic au X IIP siecle: Autour du “Guide de I'etudiant" du M s Ripoll 109 (forthcoming).
For modem accounts of these issues which indicate the continued significance of
(a) the relation of rhetoric to dialectic and (b) the relation of rhetoric to ethics, see
Amelie Oksenberg Rorty ed., Essays on Aristotle's Rhetoric, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London:
University of California Press, 1996 and David J. Furley and Alexander Nehamas,
eds. Aristotle’s Rhetoric: Philosophical Essays, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Univer­
sity Press, 1994.
4 See Learning Institutionalized: Teaching in the Medieval University, ed. John Van Engen
and Edward D. English, (Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press.)
ROGER BACON ON RHETORIC AND POETICS 135
while Scholasticism reigned throughout the middle ages in Paris, and
while Ciceronian humanism dominated the Italian City rhetoric, the
combination of an interest in astrologia, scientia experimmtalis and rhetorica
did find a home in some Italian Universities.5
Bacon gives the theory of the relation of rhetoric and poetics to
Logic in the Communia mathematica. And he refers the reader to the
Moralis philosophic (= Opus maius VII), where he gives an account of
the uses of rhetoric and poetics. In the former text, he notes that due
to the ignorance of mathematics, many who know the principles of
this study are ignorant of its purpose. He then tells us about the
available literature on these topics circa 1267. And he remarks:
For this [the theory of rhetoric and poetics] is known from al-Farabi
in his book On the sciences and from the logic of Avicenna and al-Ghazali
and by means of Averroes book On Poetk Argument which has been
translated and by means of the prologue to this work in which the
translator Hermannus Allemanus explains that he was not able to trans­
late Aristotle’s text on the poetic argument, because he did not know
the Greek meter which Aristotle uses in this book, and we know that
this book was written in Greek and was translated into Arabic, although
this text of Aristotle has not yet been translated into Latin.
- But al-Farabi has presented to us the meaning of this argument, and
Avicenna, al-Ghazali and Averroes have done likewise. Because of this,
one ought to present an account of the nature of poetic argument, and
it falls to Logk to compose such a book, since the composition of the
doctrine of Argumentation pertains to Logk alone. Again, I have dem­
onstrated in my Metaphyska that this kind of argument is necessary and
that this science ought to be established in Logic, and that this argu­
ment is more useful [than others] since it leads to salvation in the soul
and to virtues and happiness so that vices can be avoided.
The appropriate presentation of this argument is found in [my] Moralis
philosophia, and in its use, and likewise in theological proofs and doctrines;
and in such moral matters, this kind of argument moves a [person]
much more than the demonstrative argument since it has much greater
power. And I have already composed a treatise on this argument
See the work of William J . Courtenay, Teaching Careers at the University of Paris in
the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Texts and Studies in the History of Medieval
Education, no. 18. Notre Dame, Ind.: United States Subcommission for the History
of Universities, University of Notre Dame, 1988. Ibid., Schools and Scholars in Fourteenth-
Century England, Princeton, N.J.; Princeton University Press, 1987.
5 See G. Federici Vescovini, Astrologia E Scienza: La crisi dell'aristotelismo sul cadre del
Trecento e Biagio Pelacani da Parma, Firenze: Nuovedizioni, Enrico Vallechi, 1979. Ibid.,
“Peter of Abano and Astrology,” in Patrick Curry, ed., Astrology, Science and Society,
(The Boydell Press, 1987), 19-40; Ibid., “Libri e maestri dello studio ferrarese,” in
La Renascita Del Sapere, ed. Patrizia Castelli (Padova: Marsilio, 1991), 293-306.
 136 JEREMIAH HACKETT
[Rhetoric-Poetic] in my works on Logic, and I have shown there what
is proper to this science.
And according to Aristotle and to al-Farabi, this argument makes
use of beautiful and decorous speech so that the soul will be immedi­
ately raised to the love o f virtue and happiness and to the hatred of
vice, and will scarcely ever be attracted to it. And so poetic speeches
that are complete, beautiful and efficacious in moving the soul ought
to be dressed out in all proper forms of prosaic speech, and abide by
all the laws of meter and rhythm, just like Sacred Scripture in the
Hebrew Language, and Boethius in the Consolation of Philosophy, and
Alanus On the Plaint of Nature, and the hymns of the Church, and much
of the divine office, so that by the decor and sweetness of the lan­
guage, the soul may be stongly and immediately m oved.. . .6
Bacon’s advocacy of the use of the extant translated materials on
Rhetoric and Poetics at Paris shows us that there was a major lacuna
6 Communia mathematica, ed. Steele (Opera, XVI), pp. 16-17: (Nam longe magis
ignorabitur finis logice quam ejus principium vel medium per ignoranciam math-
ematice si diligenter attendamus). Nam certum est per Alpharabius in libro De scientiis
et per Logicam Avicenne et Algazelis, et per commentum Averroys super librum de
argumento poetico translatum, et per prologum in quo translator Hermannus
Allemanus se excusat quod textum Aristotelis quern fecit de dicto argumento non
potuit transferre, quia ignoravit metrum Graecum quibus utitur Aristotelis in hoc
libro, et scimus quod hie liber est in Greco compositus, et de Greco in Arabicum
translatus, licet in Latinum non sit conversus Aristotelis textus. Sed Alpharabius exponit
intencionem illius argumenti, et Avicenna similiter et Algasel et Averrois, quapropter
oportet ponere genus arguendi poetice, et quod logica de hoc constituat librum,
quoniam ad solam logicam pertinet argumenti compositio et doctrina. Ceterum
demonstravi in Metaphysicis quod hoc genus arguendi est necessarium, et quod
scientia debet de eo constitui in logica, et quod argumentum hoc est utilis omni argu­
mento cum feratur in anime salutem et circa virtutes et felicitatem, et ut vicia decli-
nantur. Quod argumentum proprium est in textu Moralis philosphie, et in ejus usu
et similiter in theologicis probacionibus et doctrinis, et plus potest hoc argumentum
in illis movere sine omni comparacione quam demonstracio quantum cumque potis-
sima habeatur. Et jam composui de eo tractatum in logicalibus, et ostendi quod ei
proprium est. Et secundum Aristotilem et secundum quod exponit Alpharabius, hoc
argumentum utitur semonibus pulchris et in fine decoris, ut rapiatur animus subito
in amorem virtutis et felicitatis, et in odium vicii et pene perpetue que ei respondet. Et
ideo sermones poetici qui sunt completi et pulchritudine et effacacia movendi animum
debent esse omati omni venustate loquendi prosaice et astricti omni lege metri et
rithmi, sicut Scriptura Sacra in lingua primitiva que Hebrea est, et Boecius De conso-
lacione, et Alanus De consolatione nature et Poetria Oratii, et hymni Ecclesie, et
multum de officio divino, ut decore et suavitate sermonis animus subito et fortiter
moveatur. Nam “pro-desse volunt aut delectare”, poete, et Omne tulit punctum qui
miscuit utile dulci.
See also Moralis philosophia, ed. E. Massa, pp. 255-6. See William F. Boggess,
“Hermannus Alemannus’s Rhetorical Translations,” VIATOR 2 (1971), 227-50;
(Ansto teles Latinus, XXXI, 1-2), RH ETO RIC A-translatio anonyma et guillelmi,
ed. Bemhardus Schneider, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978), 337-43 for a specimen of
Hermann’s translation. William F. Bogges, “Alfarabi and Rhetoric: The Cave Revis­
ited,” Phronesis, 15 (1970), 86-90.
ROGER BACON ON RHETORIC AND POETICS 137
in the curriculum. He makes the point that the normal student and
Professor were ignorant of this material. If a rhetoric was used it
that that of Cicero.7 And by 1270, apparently under the influence of
Thomas Aquinas, the Rhetoric of Aristotle in the new William of
Moerbecke translation would be read.8
Earlier in Gundissalinus’s classification of the sciences, rhetoric as
eloquence had been omitted. And Rhetoric was seen to be part of
Logic, while Poetics linked with the imagination. With the influence
of al-Farabi, one has the evident move toward the ethical and political
uses of rhetoric. One major consequence of Bacon’s placing the con­
struction of the rhetorical and poetical argument in Logic is that the
traditional medieval treatment of Cicero as auctor in rhetoricam is rejected.
He is retained but given a small place behind Aristotle. In other
words, Bacon will not agree that Rhetoric is just a side-connection
to civil science. Rather, it is deeply tied to human and ethical con­
cerns in the broadest sense. And the Master of the ethical life is
Aristotle, the author of the Nicomachean Ethics.9
It is important to mention the Nicomachean Ethics here because Her­
mannus Alemannus in the conclusion of his prologue to the translation
of the Rhetoric explicitly makes the connection between the Rhetoric
and the Ethics. Further, he refers to himself as continuing the kind
7 For an account of the dominance of the Rhetoric of the early Cicero on the
Middle Ages, see James J. Murphy, “Cicero’s Rhetoric in the Middle Ages,” in The
Quarterly Journal of Speech, 54, 4 (1967), 334—341. “Medieval culture was, of course,
essentially a Latin culture”, p. 338. See p. 336 for the 14th century exclusion of
Rhetoric from the curriculum at the University of Paris and the dominance of Cicero
in Bologna and Italian schools. However, for Cicero the 13th century Schools were
limited to the Ps. Ciceronian Rhetoricam ad Herennium and to the De Inventione.
8 See Edward Kennard Rand, Cicero in the Courtroom of St Thomas Aquinas, Mil­
waukee, Marquette University Press, 1944 and James J. Murphy, “Rhetoric in the
Middle Ages,” p. I l l : Concerning William Moerbecke’s translation of the Rhetoric:
“Composed about 1270 at the height of the Parisian interest in Aristotelian writings,
it appeared to be in the main stream of endeavors to make all the works of Aristotle
available to the Western world. Says a chronicle for the year 1273: “William of
Brabant, of the Order of Preachers, translated all the books of Aristotle from Greek
into Latin, word for word (verbum ex verbo), which translation scholars are now
using in school, at the instance of Thomas Aquinas.” One should notice how Tho­
mas Aquinas in his account of the Passions, especially that of Anger (ira), uses the
Rhetoric of Aristotle as his interpretative help. See Jeremiah Hackett, “Roger Bacon
on Magnanimity and Virtue,” in Moral and Political Philosophy in the Middle Ages, ed.
Bazan, Andujar, Sbrocchi, New York-Ottawa-Toronto, 1995, Vol. I, 367-77.
9 The establishment in the University Curriculum of the Nicomachean Ethics of
Aristode by scholars such as Roger Bacon and Thomas Aquinas was, perhaps, one
of the most revolutionary moves in medieval education.
 138 JEREMIAH HACKETT
of work which Robert Grosseteste usubtills intellectus Linkoniensis episcopus”
did recendy in his translation and gloss on the Nicomachean Ethics.101
Bacon continues his account of Poetic argument itself and again
notes the need for elegant prose, good meter and rythm and states
that all of this pertains to Music.11 He had mentioned this in Communia
mathematica and had already treated this topic in the Opus maius and
in the Opus tertium. He remarks: “On account of which, this book of
Logic cannot be understood nor taught without the help of music
which gives us an account of the causes and reasons concerning prose,
meter and rythm.”12 And having once more scolded Hermannus
Alemannus, he notes that this book on Poetics is the main goal and
completion of logic (finalis bgicae). It is so because it aims at the ulti­
mate good of the human being, that is, virtue and happiness (.Felicitas),
and it moves one strongly towards them. He then notes that other
truthbearing forms of argument move the human being either to
opinion such as dialectical argument or to science such as demonstra­
tive argument or to belief such as the rhetorical argument, but this
kind of argument, [the Poetic argument] leads one to action and
orders one to the complete human good. “These then are the only
four kinds of truthful argument concerning which Logic treats, as
the books of Aristotle and others teach, and as I have demonstrated
in my Metaphysics and in my books on Logic.”13
10 Hermannus Alemannus’s Prologue to his translation of the Rhetoric, cited.
William F. Bogges, art. tit., 250: Quemadmodum contingit in libro Nichomachie
quem Latini Ethicam Aristotelis appelant. Nam et hunc prout potui in latinum verti
eloquium ex arabico. Et postmodum reverendus pater magister Robertas Grossic apitis
sed subtilis Linkoniensis episcopus ex primo fonte unde mandaverat, greco videlicet,
ipsum est completius interpretatus et grecorum commends proprias annectens notulas
commentatus. Sic, si totius scientie largitori placuerit, contingere poterit in his opusculis
primordialiter a nobis, etsi debeliter, elaboratis, quod ipse patrare dignetur qui vivit
et regnat etemaliter in perfecta trinitate. Amen. The reader should note that much
of Bacon’s recommendation about the interpretation of Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Poetics
is taken from this Prologue. For the importance of the Mcomachean Ethics for virtue
and human friendship in the context of these discussions, see James McEvoy,
“Grosseteste’s Reflections on Aristotelian Friendship: A ‘New’ Commentary on
Nicomachean Ethics VIII. 8-14,” in James McEvoy, ed., Robert Grosseteste: New Perspectives
on His Thought and Scholarship, (Instrumenta Patristica xxvii, Brepols, 1995), 149-168.
11 In Communia mathematica, Bacon presents a lengthy account of the connection of
Rhetoric and Poetics to Music and Mathematics. See the paper of Nancy Van Deusen
below.
12 Ibid., 18: Quapropter hie liber logice non potest intelligi nec doceri sine beneficio
musice cujus est causa et raciones prose metrorum et rithmorum d are .. . .
13 Ibid., p. 18: Sunt enim hec quatuor tantum argumenta veridica de quibus est
logica, ut libri Aristotelis docent et aliorum, et hoc in Metaphysicis et Logiclibus
demonstravi. On Bacon and the poetics, see Eugenio Massa, Ruggero Bacone: etica e
ROGER BACON ON RHETORIC AND POETICS 139
Bacon ends this section by noting how Aristotle states that the end
or goal imposes teleological necessity on the means, and thus the
poetic argument imposes a necessity on the other parts of logic.
Moreover, “the end [finis) of logic cannot be known without knowl­
edge of mathematics; neither can the means or principle of logic be
known without mathematics. And so the pure logician can provide
nothing of value in logic (without the aid of mathematics).”14
When we return to Bacon’s works for Pope Clement IV, we notice
the extent to which these works are influenced by his readings in
rhetoric and poetics. Not only does he use the new materials from
translations from Greek and Arabic, but he also returns to the main
sources of Latin rhetoric and poetics, to Cicero, Seneca, Horace and
especially to the De doctrina Christiana of St Augustine. Concerning the
latter text, he remarks that “the whole of book IV is concerned with
the present subject matter [i.e. the uses of rhetoric and poetics in
moral matters], and almost everything that I have said here [in Moralis
philosophici] is found in that book in a philosophical mode.”15 The
influence of Augustine’s writings on language, especially the De doctrina
Christiana had a profound impact on the writings of Roger Bacon in
the I260’s.16
Before proceeding to an account of how Bacon makes use of the
sources of rhetorical and poetic argument from the ancient and early
medieval world, one should note that the Opus maius itself is con­
structed as a rhetorical argument. It is conceived as an introductory
Persuasio to a projected work in philosophy. And while it does con­
tain specific treatises such as De signis and the Perspectwa and De scientia
experimental, it is largely a vast polemic on the state of learning in
the mid-13th century. More than that, it is a profound attempt to
poetica nella storia delVOpus Maius, (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Litteratura, Uomini e
Dottrine 3, 1955).
14 Ibid., p. 18: Et ideo finis logice non potest sine mathematica sciri, sicut nec
medium nec principium. Et ideo nihil dignum potest purus logicus in logicalibus
pertractare.
15 Moralis philosophia, ed. E. Massa, p. 258: Set, cum philosophic utilitas non patet
nisi quando trahitur ad divina, potest hec pars philosophic pulcherimme deservire
divinis, secundum quod pulchre et magnifice docent Sancti et precipue beatus
Augustinus, libro quarto De doctrina Christiana. Nam totus hie fiber est de hac
materia, et fere quicquid nunc dixi, philosphice invenitur in illo libro.
16 Thomas S. Maloney, “Is the De doctrina Christiana the Source for Roger Bacon’s
Semiotics?,” in Edward D. English, ed. Reading and Wisdom: The De doctrina Christiana
of Augustine in the Middle Ages, Notre Dame and London, University of Notre Dame
Press, 126-142.
 140 JEREMIAH HACKETT
harmonize the “new” works which had been lately translated from
Greek and Arabic with the traditional Latin and Christian texts.
I have argued elsewhere that there is a remarkable parallel be­
tween the aim and goal of Averroes Kitab fasl al-Maqual (The Decisive
Treatise Determining the Nature of the Connection between Religion and Philosophy)
and the Opus maius of Roger Bacon.17 I noted that although Bacon
did not know this work by Averroes, he did make use of Averroes’ Com­
mentary on the Poetics of Aristotle as well as works by al-Farabi, al-Ghazali
and Avicenna to construct a position that is analogous to that of
Averroes.18 Like Averroes, he argues that the dialectical and demon­
strative arguments are deficient concerning moral matters. In such
matters, one needs both the rhetorical argument for the masses and
the poetic argument for direction of the person towards action.
Like Averroes’s Decisive Treatise in the Islamic world, Bacon’s Opus
maius is essentially a moral-persuasive defense of a position. It is a
persuasio, a work of moral philosophical persuasion in both form and
content. And it was intended as such by Bacon on the basis of what
he understood to be a theory of persuasion that he had learned from
the above mentioned writers. The importance of secetive writing,
influenced by al-Farabi and others, influenced Bacon.19 He makes it
abundantly clear that on more controversial topics such as astrology
and alchemy, he is cloaking his references and meaning from the
common teachers.
In the Opus maius, Bacon launches a polemic against “the sophis­
tical authorities of the irrational multitude, men who are authorities
in an equivocal sense.” By this he means the common run of student
and teacher at Paris. They are set in opposition to the wise (Sapientes),
17 Jeremiah Hackett, “Averroes and Roger Bacon on the Harmony of Religion
and Philosophy,” in Ruth Link-Salinger ed. A Straight Path: Studies in Medieval Philosophy
and Culture: Essays in Honor o f Arthur Hyman, Washington D.C., The Catholic University
of America Press, 1989, 98-112.
18 See Irene Rosier-Catach, “Roger Bacon, Al-Farabi, et Augustin Rhetorique,
Logique et Philosophic Morale,” in Gilbert Dahan, Irene Rosier-Catach, eds., La
rhetorique d’Aristote, traditions et commentaires, de I’Atiquite au XVIP siecle, (forthcoming):
This work demonstrates the manner in which the Rhetoric of Aristotle with the Middle
Commentary of Averroes (trs. Hermannus Alemannus) and the works of al-Farabi,
especially the De scientiis and Didascalia were used by Bacon. These works he fused
with the De doctrina Christiana of Augustine to produce his notion of persuasive rheto­
ric. For al-Farabi, see J. Langhade & M. Grignaschi, Al-Farabi: Deux Ouvrages Inedits
Sur La Rhetorique: I. Kitab Al-Hataba II. Didascalia in Rhetoricam Aristotelis ex Glossa Alpharabi,
(Beyrouth: Dar El-Machreq Editeurs, 1971).
19 Leo Straus, Persecution and the Art of Writing, Chicago, University of Chicago
Press, 1988.
ROGER BACON ON RHETORIC AND POETICS 141
who include Robert Grosseteste, Adam Marsh, the logician William
of Sherwod, Albertus Magnus and others. In my view, there is much
evidence to show that Bacon’s polemic against the vulgus philosophorum
et theologorum at Paris was in part directed against the new school of
Latin Aristotelianism, which began about 1262 under leadership of
Siger of Brabant and Boethius of Dacia.20 It is clear also that Richard
Rufus O.F.M. and Thomas Aquinas O.P. came under Bacon’s attack,
and one can conclude that on some issues his attack on Rufus was
a veiled attack on Bonaventure.21 According to Bacon, these are “the
false authorities”— “the modem teachers of the people”, and he adds:
Although many important portions of philosophy have been translated,
[they] make no use of them, and delight in small and trivial works
while neglecting the two better works on Logic, one of which has been
translated with a commentary of al-Farabi [i.e. the Rhetoric of Aristotle
and the Didascalia of al-Farabi], and an exposition of the second made
by Averroes has been translated without the text of Aristotle [i.e.
Averroes exposition on the Poetics] . Far more do they neglect all the
rest possessing still greater value such as the nine sciences o f Mathe­
matics, and the six great Natural Sciences, comprehending in themselves
many others, and the four very excellent divisions o f moral philosophy.
And they seek their wretched solace in Gratian and the other recognized
Masters who had no knowledge of the parts o f Philosophy, even as
these men have not. They take refuge also in the bald statements of
certain Sacred Writers since they do not understand the reasons stated
above. For the Sacred Writers after Christ did not take advantage of
the great value of philosophy. . . [and] the host of modern students
neglect important sciences, although they were introduced after the time
of Gratian.22*
20 Jeremiah Hackett, “Practical Wisdom and Happiness in the Moral Philosophy
of Roger Bacon,” Medioevo, XII (1986), 5-109.
21 Jeremiah Hackett, “Aquinas, Roger Bacon and Latin Averroism: The problem
of the Intellective Soul (anima intellectiva) 1266-77,” in Jeremiah Hackett, ed., Aquinas on
Mind and Intellect: New Essays, NY: Dowling College Press, 1996, 15-43, esp. 28-30.
22 Opus maius I, ed, Bridges, (= Vol. Ill), 33: Modemi vero Doctores vulgi licet
multa de philosphiae magnalibus sint translata, tamen non habent eorum usum,
cum etiam in parvis et vilibus delectati duos libros meliores negligunt, quorum unus
translatus est cum commentario Alpharabii super ilium et alterius expositio per
Averroem facta sine extu Aristotelis est translata. Et longe magis caetera quae
majorem obtinent dignitatem, sicut novem scientias Mathematicae, et sex scientias
magnas Naturales, quae multas alias sub se comprehendunt, atque Morales quattuor
partes negligunt dignissimas; et suae ignorantiae quaerunt miserabile solatium per
Gratianum et caeteros Magistros authenticos, qui non habuerunt notitiam partium
Philosophiae, sicut nec praesentes; et per dicta sanctorum antiquorum simplicia, non
intelligentes causas antedictas. Nam sancti post Christum non sunt usi multa
Philosophia dignitate . .. multorum studentium modemorum magnas negligit scientias,

142 JEREMIAH HACKETT
In Bacon’s view, in explicit dependence on Averroes, the masses will
always follow principles contrary to Philosophy. And this includes
the common teachers and students of philosophy, law and theology.
He puts the matter as follows:
For the Wise have always been divided from the multitude, and they
have veiled the secrets of wisdom not only from the world at large but
also from the rank and file of those devoting themselves to philosophy.23
Bacon is deeply indebted above all to al-Farabi for his notion of
Rhetoric in the service of persuasion, and this combined with Bacon’s
interest in comparing Religions and Cultures leads Bacon to emphasise
the moral and religious uses of a rhetoric and a poetics. Bacon’s is
particularly dependent on the De scientiis of al-Farabi. And indeed,
he makes a very interesting synthesis of the materials from the De
doctrina Christiana of Augustine and the newly translated works on
rhetoric from the Arabic authors. And yet, lurking in the background
of this synthesis is Bacon’s plan for an application of Abu M a'shar’s
works on astronomy-astrology to the determination of the cultural
characteristics of different societies. In a very real sense, Moralis philo­
sophic,, part four, presents a sketch of a sociology of cultures and reli­
gions based on a calculation of character traits based on a model of
astrology taken from Abu Ma'shar.
Philosophia moralis: the Uses of Rhetorical and Poetical Argumentation
For Bacon, Philosophia moralis is concerned with human actions, with
the operabilia. Further, Moral Philosophy is seen by him as the “Queen
of the Sciences.” It is the finis or end of all other branches of philo­
sophy and science, and “. . . the conclusions of the other sciences are
principles in it in accordance with the relationship of the preceding
sciences to those that follow. . . .” Thus, there is an inner coherence
in Bacon’s scheme: following the Stoic model, Bacon subordinates
the study of language and physics to morals. From the viewpoint of
Christian theology, this is a Reductio artium ad theologiam. Thus, Bacon’s
cum tamen fuerint introductae post Gratianum et alios et in usu per viros Sapientiae
excellentis, quos oculis nostris conspeximus, et aliqui adhuc vivunt qui in solemnibus
studiis eas sapientibus perlegerunt.
23 Ibid., 9—10: Nam semper sapientes contra vulgus divisi sunt, et arcana sapientiae
non toti mundo solum sed plebi philosophantium velaverunt.
ROGER BACON ON RHETORIC AND POETICS 143
work in moral philosophy is firmly set in a theological context. This
can be seen from Bacon’s own words: “Besides, this science alone
[moral philosophy] or for the most part is concerned with the same
matters as theology since theology considers the five abovementioned
[sciences] albeit in a different manner, namely in the faith of Christ----
But theology is the noblest of the sciences, therefore that science
which is most clearly related to it is nobler than the others.”24
There is a rhetoric built into the whole structure of the Moralis
philosophia. In part one, Bacon sets out to give a rhetorical argument
in which he attempts to combine Ancient Greek philosophers, Neo­
platonic authors, Islamic writers, with traditional Latin and Christian
sources to present a philosophical Anthropology. In parts two and
three, he is alert to the rhetorical uses of argument in Social Philoso­
phy and in theory of Virtue. In part four, he presents a persuasion
concerning comparative religion. Part five has to do with the persua­
sion of those who believe in Christianity, and the short part six has
to do with persuasion in legal matters.
The Role of Rhetoric in Morality and Religion
Bacon is concerned with the role of argument in morality and religion.
He notes that the human being has greater difficulty with regard to
the operabilia than he does with speculative knowledge. In issues which
relate to justice, the virtues, peace, eternal happiness and worship of
God, the human being has great need of rational persuasion. But
these matters, since they touch on deeply felt emotions involve much
more than bare rationality. They involve motivation, desire, inclination,
hope, and will. In a word, they belong to the domain of Practical
Reason. Also, due to man’s fallen condition, Bacon thinks that the
human being has much need of “forceful and inducive” remedies in
practical affairs. “Now, because of the well-known works of Aristotle,
we are, familiar with two kinds of argument, namely the dialectical
and the demonstrative.”25 But a knowledge of both the Aristotelian
Rhetoric and Poetics was lacking.
24 Moralis philosophia, ed. E. Massa, 4: Ceterum, de eisdem negociatur hec sola
scientia vel maxime, de quibus theologia; quia theologia non considerat nisi quinque
predicta, licet alio modo, scilicet in fide Christi. . . . Set theologia est scientia
nobilissima; ergo ilia, que maxime convenit cum ea, est nobilior inter ceteras.. . .
25 Ibid., 250: Duo vero sunt argumenta nota per libros Anstotelis de hiis vulgatos,
scilicet dialecticum et demonstrativum.
144 JEREMIAH HACKETT
One needs to emphasise here that Bacon has a very difficult task.
He is presenting an account of Aristode’s ethics and his rhetoric in
a context where Cicero was the Master of forensic rhetoric. More
importantly, Bacon is very alert to Aristode’s injunctions in the
Nicomachean Ethics that demonstrative or mathematical arguments may
not be appropriate in morals.26 He notes that it is equally erroneous
for moral argument to use demonstrations as it is for mathematical
sciences to use rhetorical argument. Dialectical arguments are equally
invalid in ethics. These kinds of argument are unable to sway the
mind to the good. They lead only to a knowledge of the true. Moral
reason is primarily practical (non-speculative) and is directed to the
achievement of goodness in a person’s life. Therefore, in the practi­
cal sphere one has need of a different kind of argument, namely, the
rhetorical argument.
Now, in Bacon’s view, “Ciceronian rhetoric does not teach this
kind of argumentation, except in terms of cases to be pleaded, in
order that an orator might persuade a judge. But as I have pointed
out there are three kinds of persuasion, and therefore the argument
taught by Cicero is inadequate; rather we need the complete doctrine
found in Aristotle and his commentators.”27 For Bacon, the rhetoric
of Aristotle is one which has an “argument taken from a group of
truthful arguments, and [which] lacks fraud and sophistry.”28 Further,
this rhetorical persuasion which is directed to belief, action, and right
judgment is based on principles of eloquence. That is, it aims to
render the hearer docile, well-disposed, and eager. And it takes care
to explain the truth clearly so that difficult problems can be untied.
Thus, the element of utility must be introduced if the truth is to be
believed, acted on, and rightly judged. Oratory or Public Speech
demands not only teaching (doctrina), which is obligatory, and pleasure,
which is voluntary; it requires persuasion, which is essential. Notwith­
standing his acclaim for Aristotle, Bacon takes some of this material
from Cicero and St Augustine, and uses this material to drive home
26 Ibid., 250: Unde Aristoteles primo Ethice vult quod moralis sciencia non habeat
uti demonstracione, set rhetorico argumento.
27 Ibid., p. 251: Rhetorica vero tulliana non docet hoc argumentum, nisi propter
causas ventilandas, ut orator possit persuadere iudici, quatinus consenciat parti sue
et indignetur adverse. Sed flexus triplex est, ut dixi; et ideo hoc argumentum, ut
Tullius docet, non sufficit, sed indignemus completa doctrina Aristotilis et commen-
tatorum eius.
28 Ibid., p. 252.
ROGER BACON ON RHETORIC AND POETICS 145
his conviction that rhetoric is essentially directed towards engender­
ing action. Teaching [doctrina) alone is a necessary but not a sufficient
condition for action. A person may well know that something is
morally right, but the same person may avoid the requisite moral
actions. In such a case, the forms of moral persuasion may be required.
Where public oratory is concerned, Bacon advocates that the speaker
should mix the plain, the moderate and the grand styles.
There is some repetition in Bacon’s text. Still, he gives a threefold
division of rhetoric which corresponds to his threefold division of
practical moral philosophy. The first kind is that used in persuasion
in Religion. This deals with levels of assent and proof. The second
kind has to do with forensic oratory and is found in Cicero in his
book on rhetoric. The third kind is concerned with things which
sway us in regard to human actions (the operabilia). The first two
kinds, he calls “rhetoric absolutely speaking.” The third kind, he says,
“is properly called poetic argument by Aristotle and other philosophers,
since truthful poets use it to sway men to the honesty of virtue. . . .”29
The difference between a Poet who has a truthful poem and one
who has a frivolous rhyme is presented by Bacon in a contrast between
the Roman poets Horace and Ovid. Whereas Horace is noble and
beneficial to the reader, Ovid is plainly frivolous, if not downright
morally injurious to young people. However, despite this dependence
on Roman writers, Bacon makes it clear that Aristotle in the Rhetoric
and Poetics is to be taken as the true norm of moral discourse.
In Bacon’s account ca. 1267, the problem is that “the unlearned
multitude” of university students are ignorant of the composition of
such arguments. And this is so, especially since the Poetics of Aristotle
is lacking. Still, in his view, diligent students could figure it out from
Averroes’ Commentary, the Rhetoric, which had been translated, but is
not in common use, and from Horace’s Ars poetica, al-Farabi’s De
scientiis, Avicenna and al-Ghazali on Logic. Both here and again in
part six, Bacon maintains the superiority of moral rhetoric over foren­
sic. In the remainder of part five, Bacon gives examples of the uses
of rhetoric in moral and religious truth. The following is a short
review of these exempla.
29 Ibid., p. 255: Tercium vero argumentum, quod flectit ad ea, que hec quinta pars
considerat, rhetoricum quidem est, sed vocatur proprie nomine “Poeticum” ab Aris-
totile et ceteris philosophis, quia poete veraces usi sunt eo in flectendo homines ad
virtutum honestatem.. .. See G. Dahan, “Notes et Textes Sur La Poetique Au Moyen
Age,” in Archive d’Histoire Doctrinale et litteraire du Moyen Age, T.XLVII, 1981, 171-239.
146 JEREMIAH HACKETT
First, he advocates the view that “poetics”, his third kind of rhetori­
cal argument, must use “the grand style, since it always speaks of
great and magnificent things and therefore requires high-sounding
language when the mind is swayed to action.”30 He goes on in general
to advocate a mixture of styles, but he insists that the grand style
must dominate the others. He gives as an example the speech of
Cicero on his return from exile. And he notes that this kind of grand
style is make up from “analogies drawn from the properties of things.”
Thus, virtue is compared to light, and favorable things to whatever
causes light. The happiness of the other life is compared to all that
is good in this life. Now, it might be thought that Bacon’s position
commits him to a rhetorical twisting of the truth. Indeed, following
Avicenna, he holds that this kind of argument is not concerned with
speculative truth. Yet, such a rhetorical proposition is true not accord­
ing to nature, but “by way of analogy.”31
This theory of interpretation in Bacon is closely linked to his view
that the spiritual sense of the text of Scripture will not be understood
unless one understands the literal text.32 Thus, the analogies will be
worthless unless they presuppose a base of literal meaning. Rhetoric
simply accepts the existence of such literal truth and simply draws
analogies, similarities and comparisons from things, but one is not
concerned whether such things exist or not.
Poetic argument, however, is not complete in simply giving analogies
drawn from the properties of things. To reach fulfillment, there must
exit over and above the flow of language a movement of the mind
and a proper gesture of the body in keeping with the words of the
teaching, so that the hearer will be moved “. . . we ought to learn
more by the required affects and gestures than by language. . . .”33
This remark shows us that Bacon makes a sharp distinction between
30 Ibid., p. 256: Hoc argumentum semper utitur grandi stilo, quia semper de
grandibus eloquitur et magnificis rebus, et ideo semper de grandibus requiritur; sed
hoc maxime est cum flectitur animus ad agendum .. . .
31 Ibid., p. 258: Et secundum quod docet Avicenna in L(og)ica sua, hoc argumentum
non curat de veritate proposocionum nec de falsitate, quia non movet intellectum
speculativum, sed practicum, ut manifestum est, cum de peccatore dicitur quod est
<sus lota in volutabro luti>. Propositio ista non est vera secundum proprietatem
rerum, sed secundum similitudinem. See See Bacon, De signis and Cts on analogy.
32 See H. De Lubac, Exegese Medievale, Les quatre Sens de VEcriture (4 vols.) Paris,
1959-1964; see also Tzvetan Todorov, Synbolisme et interpretation, Paris 1978; Edward
D. English, ed. Reading and Wisdom: The De doctrina Christiana. .., ed. cit.
33 Moralis philosophia, 262: . . . magis debemus afectibus et gestibus debitis exprimere
quam sermone. . . .
ROGER BACON ON RHETORIC AND POETICS 147
language as a structure and the living embodiment of teaching and
speech.
The conclusion of part five provides Bacon’s remarks on the rela­
tion of rhetoric to theology, and again he finds confirmation of this
topic in book four of Augustine’s De doctrina ckristiana. He sees Scrip­
ture as having a great variety of rhetorical ornaments such that it needs
interpretation in the following manner. The word of God is con­
tained in wonderous enigmas which must be deciphered; here the
help of both Pseudo-Dionysius and Cicero are invoked. This view of
the unfolding of the senses of Scripture as an unveiling which leads
to greater knowledge of the truth agrees with Bacon’s earlier reflec­
tions on this topic in Opus maius, part two. For Bacon, there is no
automatic avenue to truth or an inner vision of truth. One has need
of philosophy in all of its parts, and especially Rhetoric and Poetics
to gain access to that truth.
Rhetoric and Poetics are not a kind of afterthought to formal logic,
a kind of icing on the cake or a kind of nice style. For Bacon they
are not a take it or leave it subject, but an essential part of the work
of hermeneutics. And in his view, Aristotle, “the Master of those
who know” is the master of the teaching on Rhetoric and Poetics.
He ends by advocating that Preachers improve their presentation by
a study of rhetoric and poetics. In part six of the Moralis philosophia,
Bacon re-introduces forensic rhetoric and tells the reader to look to
al-Farabi on the Rhetoric and to Cicero and Seneca.
Corollary: Did Roger Bacon’s views have any direct influence?
One thing is clear; the whole issue of the Rhetoric and Poetics became
a public issue. By 1270, Moerbecke’s translation was in use at Paris
probably due to the influence of Thomas Aquinas. But again, it was
not taught as an ordinary course.
The one thinker who give evidence of the influence of the Aristo­
telian Rhetoric and Poetics is Giles of Rome (.Aegidius Romanum). In
his Commentary on the Rhetoric (1280’s), he begins his discussion with a
presentation of the position that the part of Rhetoric which deals
with the composition of Rhetorical Arguments belongs to Logic.
Further, he takes the view that Philosophia moralis is the locus for the
uses of Rhetoric.34 The Rhetoric has survived in many manuscripts
34 Aegidius Romanus (Colonna), Commentaria in rhetoricam Aristotelis, Venice 1515
(Minerva reprint, 1968), 1: Rhetorica assecutiva dialectice est.. .. See J.R. O ’Donnell,
“The Commentary of Giles of Rome on the Rhetoric of Aristotle,” in Essays in
 148 JEREMIAH HACKETT
and this despite its exclusion from the curriculum of the Universities
until the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Giles of Rome’s
Commentary played a major role in presenting to a Latinate culture
a Rhetoric which was different in scope from the Ars poetica of Horace
and the many Ciceronian writings on Rhetoric. Further, it would
appear that the strong linkage between rhetoric and Moralis philosophia
which one finds in Giles of Rome led to an emphasis on this aspect
of the subject. This is so, because one does not find much connec­
tion between Rhetoric and Logic during this period. Bacon may have
sown the seed but it was Giles of Rome who developed Latin knowl­
edge Aristotle’s rhetoric and its relationship to ethics.
Translations into the vernacular of works on Rhetoric, especially
that of Aristotle, came late. In fact, it had to wait until the late
Renaissance. Aristotle’s Rhetoric was not translated into English until
Thomas Hobbes penned his paraphrase in the 17th century. In this
as in the case of the doctrine of Signs, he continued the interests of
his fellow-countryman, Roger Bacon.35
Conclusion
Because Bacon’s study of rhetoric and poetics has such an evident
influence on his Opus maius, it was necessary to pick out his various
remarks which he uses concerning this topic. His work on rhetoric
has not come down to us. But we can see his context in outline. He
is dealing with a University system which placed all the emphasis on
Grammar and Logic to the detriment of rhetoric and poetics. The
Aristotelian Nicomachean Ethics had only been translated completely
by Robert Grosseteste in 1249. Bacon had access to Hermannus
Allemanus’s translation of the Rhetoric which reached Paris by 1256,
Medieval History presented to Bertie Wilkinson, ed. T.A. Sandquist and M.R. Powicke,
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974, 139-156. See also G. Bruni, “The ‘De
Differentia Rhetoricae, Ethicae, et Politicae’’ of Aegidius Romanus,” in New Scholasticism, VI
(1932), 1-18. For the manner in which the Rhetoric of Aristode became detached
from logical concerns and became connected only with moral issues, see James Jerome
Murphy, “The Scholastic Condemnation of Rhetoric in the Commentary of Giles
of Rome on the Rhetoric of Aristotle,” in Artes Liberaux et Philosophie Au Moyen Age,
Montreal-Paris, 1969, 833-41.
35 For a recent study of the significance of Rhetoric in Thomas Hobbes, see
Quentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in The Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, Cambridge
University Press, 1996.
ROGER BACON ON RHETORIC AND POETICS 149
and to the Averroes’ Commentary on the Poetics. When we bear in mind
that the Western World did not get the complete Poetics until William
Moerbecke’s translation in the 1280’s and did not get a first Commentary
on the Rhetoric until Giles of Rome completed his commentary in the
1270’s, then one grasps a true image of Bacon’s situation. He was a
transition figure who was an advocate for a deeper study of what he
held to be the “greater” works in logic by Aristotle, namely the
Rhetoric and the Poetics. By holding that the domain of the true is
tied to logic and a part of rhetoric and of poetics, that part dealing
with the formulation of rhetorical and poetical truth, is part of Logic
and that its application and use is tied to Moral Philosophy, Bacon
was well on the way to noticing that in Aristotle’s practical philoso­
phy which he admired, nous and phronesis are closely related. Bacon
made a criticism of the division of the Trivium because he believed
that such a division reduced the truth bearing capacity of rhetoric
and poetics. By placing rhetoric over against Grammar and Formal
Logic, the medieval curriculum led to an interpretation where Rhetoric
was the non-logical (non-truthful) aspect of speech, thus in time lead­
ing to rhetoric having a purely pejorative meaning. Rhetoric had to
be distinguished from sophistry and fraud. The latter were the oppo­
site of truthful speech. The construction of a true rhetorical argu­
ment, in Bacon’s view, was a task for “Logic”, while the applications
and uses of such arguments was the task of Moral Philosophy. And
at the heart of this matter is Bacon’s recognition of unique impor­
tance of Aristotle’s reflections on practical reason in the Nicomachean
Ethics.
Further, by placing emphasis on Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Poetics,
Bacon was helping the West to see aspects of life and thought which
were absent from Latin rhetoric with it overemphasis on legal-forensic
argument. In the end, language study as well as the study of nature
was to be directed to moral good.
 7. ROGER BACON’S KNOWLEDGE OF MATHEMATICS

George Molland

I. Introduction

The cult of Roger Bacon has had many and shifting facets: he has
been lauded as magician, alchemist, experimental scientist, perspec-
tivist, ecclesiastical reformer, justified rebel, scourge of the wilfully
ignorant, and so on. But persistently there appears the image of him
as mathematician, and especially as one who would apply mathematics
to natural and other branches of philosophy for the greater good of
Christendom. At the end of the seventeenth century, the noted mathe­
matician John Wallis wrote to Leibniz that, “Those who in the present
century (following Galileo) joined mathematics to natural philosophy
have advanced physics to an enormous extent. This was also being
attempted by Roger Bacon (a great man in a dark century) four
hundred years ago (and more).” And similar encomia abound across
the ages.
In this chapter I shall discuss Bacon’s conception of the role, nature
and methods of mathematics, concentrating on arithmetic and geome­
try, which were joined in the subset of the seven liberal arts tradi­
tionally known as the quadrivium by the more applied mathematical
sciences of music and astronomy, but, as we shall see, Bacon made
modifications to this scheme. Bacon’s expressed enthusiasm for the
subject was enormous, at least from the time of the works for the
Pope around 1267 onwards. Before that time the situation is less
clear, although he obviously needed time to acquire the mathemati­
cal knowledge displayed in the Opus maius, Opus minus and Opus tertium,
and some mathematical facility is evinced in his Compotus, dating from
the earlier 1260’s.
With the exception of some geometrical argumentation in optical
contexts, the mathematical sections of the works for the Pope are
mainly concerned with persuasions as to the extreme usefulness of
the subject, and Bacon’s discussions often roam so far afield that the
actual connection with mathematics becomes tenuous, as for instance
in his arguments against the unity of matter in all bodies and his
152 GEORGE MOLLAND
long discussions of the length and shortness of syllables, with respect
to the differing relative positionings of different consonants and
vowels. Bacon’s faith in the power of mathematics is one of his best-
known features, and we shall return to the theme at the end of the
chapter, but one remark is in order at this point. It concerns the
need that Bacon felt to defend the subject against possible attacks on
the grounds that mathematicians were magicians, or something equally
as bad. This gained its plausibility from the fact that in the tradi­
tional literature astrologers were often called mathematici and attacked
for necessitarian views. Bacon is much concerned to defend true
mathematics (including legitimate forms of astrological prediction)
against such aspersions. To this end, in both the Opus maius and the
Opus tertium, he attempted to distinguish mathesis with a short e, rep­
resenting true mathematics, from mathesis or matesis, with a long e
representing false mathematics. Here he made a philological error,
which he corrected almost tacitly in later writings; I say almost tacitly
because he does rail against the ignorance of those who got the long
and the short e the wrong way round, but without mentioning that
he himself had belonged to their number.1 This point can be useful
in attempting to resolve the often vexed question of the relative
chronology of his writings.
One of the works in which it is corrected is the Communia mathematica,
which, together with an annexed truncated treatise on geometry, will
provide the main source for this chapter.2 O r at least it is corrected
in what is called the second recension of this work, for the Communia
mathematica is represented in two extant manuscripts, Digby 76 of the
Bodleian Library, Oxford, and Sloane 2156 of the British Library,
London. The Sloane manuscript contains only the beginning of the
work, while the Digby manuscript contains the later parts of the work
and the geometrical material. The two manuscripts overlap in the
middle, and a comparison reveals clearly that the Sloane manuscript
contains a later, revised version of the work. In his fine biography of
1 Cf. my “Roger Bacon’s Appropriation of Past Mathematics”, Tradition, Transmis­
sion, Transformation: Cultural Exchange in the Premodem World, ed. S.J. Livesey & F.J.
Ragep (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).
2 I think that the De laudibus mathematicae, on which see A.G. Little, “Roger Bacon’s
Works, with References to the MSS. and Printed Editions”, Roger Bacon: Essays, ed.
A.G. Little (Oxford, 1914), 375-426, at 393-394, may be worthy of greater atten­
tion than it has often been accorded. I cannot consider it here, but hope soon to
publish a separate study of it.
ROGER BACON’S KNOWLEDGE OF MATHEMATICS 153
Bacon, Stewart C. Easton tentatively dated the first recension of the
work to 1257, and argued that it at least preceded the Opus tertium.3
His principal argument for this stems from the mention of Petrus
Peregrinus as a great mathematician in the Opus tertium compared
with his absence from the Communia mathematica. For reasons that will
be evident later (in my consideration of Bacon’s authorities) I am
unable to accept this argument, and on various counts I am inclined
to date it after 1267.
II. History and Authorities
At least in his mature works, Roger Bacon was adamant about situ­
ating mathematics in wider contexts that he loosely comprehends
under the term metaphysical. Thus he begins the Communia Mathematica
as follows:
Everyone treating any special science must frequently compare it to
the science common to all, which is called metaphysics, and whose
property it is to give the division, difference and origin of all great
sciences, and what is proper to each; also to assign their order, [to
say] who discovered them and when and where they were discovered,
and to verify their principles. Each special science supposes its prin­
ciples to be, and it cannot investigate them by its own power, as Aristotle
teaches. And I have made this manifest in my Metaphysics.4
Unfortunately this Metaphysics (if it were ever actually written) is not
known to be extant. It certainly cannot be identified with the work
printed by Robert Steele under that title in Fascicle I of the Opera
Hactenus Inedita, even taking into account the more complete version
of this found in two Vatican manuscripts.5 It may at one stage have
been in the library of St Augustine’s, Canterbury,6 but for the present
3 S.C. Easton, Roger Bacon and his Search for a Universal Science: A Reconsideration of the
Life and Work of Roger Bacon in the Light of his own Stated Purposes (Oxford, 1952), 88.
4 Communia Mathematica Fratris Rogeri, ed. R. Steele [hereafter, CM], Opera Hactenus
Inedita Rogeri Baconi [hereafter, O H I], XVI (Oxford: Clarendon, 1940), 1-2.
5 Little, “Roger Bacon’s Works, 407. I have consulted photostats of the relevant
parts of the Vatican manuscripts, held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford as MS Lat.
misc. d. 37.
6 Steele’s item no. 3 in his list in Metaphysica Fratris Rogeri Ordinis Fratrum Minomm
de Viciis Contractis in Studio Theologie, ed. Robert Steele, OHI, I (Oxford, 1905), iii,
seems to me the most likely candidate. Cf. M.R. James, The Ancient Libraries of Canter­
bury and Dover: The Catalogues of the Libraries of Christ Church Prioy and St Augustine’s Abbey
at Canterbury and of St Martin’s Priory at Dover (Cambridge, 1903), 286, 313.
154 GEORGE MOLLAND
at least we must draw evidence for Bacon’s views on contextualisation
from other sources.
Let us first look at the historical dimension. It was one of Bacon’s
most firmly held beliefs that all worthwhile philosophical and scientific
knowledge had been revealed to the ancient patriarchs and prophets
near the beginning of time, and then handed down to later ages, but
not without considerable distortion.7 Thus it had continually been in
need of renovation by a variety of means; three notable restorers had
been Solomon, Aristotle and Avicenna, and it seems clear that Bacon
would have liked to see himself as a fourth. Josephus had been a
prime source for the earlier part of Bacon’s story, in whose accounts
of the descent of Seth, of Noah and his sons, and of Abraham, the
mathematical sciences figure prominently, but when we approach the
restoration theme they are less in evidence, for neither Solomon, nor
Aristotle, nor Avicenna was particularly renowned mathematically.
We may, however, pause on one facet of Bacon’s account of
Aristotle, which also shows how sometimes in Bacon’s mind the idea
of the restoration of knowledge could be (confusedly or otherwise)
almost identified with a notion of scientific progress. In the Categories
Aristotle had spoken of the quadrature of the circle as something,
supposing it knowable, of which knowledge did not yet exist, although
the knowable existed.8 The circle of course cannot be squared by
elementary geometrical means, but this fact was unappreciated by
Bacon, and in any case was not for him the main point. In the Opus
Maius he used it as an example of Aristotle’s limitations, “for he
confesses that he did not know the quadrature of the circle, which in
these days is truly known, and since he was ignorant of this, then all
the more of greater things.”9 His sentiments in the De secretis operibus
artis et naturae are similar, and he appends what is ostensibly a further
affirmation of progress: “For sages are now ignorant of many things
which the crowd of students will know in future times.”10 But it was
uncharacteristic of Bacon to diminish Aristotle, and so in what I judge
to be his more mature opinion, but expressed in the first recension
7 On this schema see my “Roger Bacon and the Hermetic Tradition in Medieval
Science”, Vivarium, 31 (1993), 140-160.
8 Categoriae 7, 7b31—33.
9 The “Opus Majus” of Roger Bacon, ed. J.H . Bridges (3 vols.: I—II, Oxford, 1897;
III, London, 1900; repr. Frankfurt, 1964), III, 14.
10 Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera Quaedam Hactenus Inedita, Vol. 1, containing I.— Opus tertium;
II.— Opus minus; III.— Compendium philosophiae, ed. J.S. Brewer (London, 1859), 542.
ROGER BACON’S KNOWLEDGE OF MATHEMATICS 155
of the Communia Mathematica, we read that, “It is to be believed that
he knew it later, because it is known in these times.”11
But, reverting to our main theme, we must note that there were
traditions more special to the history of mathematics available to
Bacon. In this connection he quotes from Adelard of Bath in the
version of Euclid’s Elements usually known as Adelard III:
Geometry like the other disciplines went on in use before it did in art.
Its use grew up with the Egyptians. Since the flooding Nile covered
over the boundaries of their fields each year, they instituted certain
procedures of measurement, by which they recovered fields of the
previous measure. Then philosophers, reviewing and approving these
procedures, and taking thence the occasion, applied their efforts to
mensuration. But because of the difficulty of the thing, individuals
stopped short of perfecting the work; some, like Pythagoras and Archytas,
instituted the rudiments, and others, like Plato, Aristotle and Alexander,
more advanced parts, until at length Euclid by superadding confirma­
tion and order wove together the proposed art, and marked it as a
monument for the memory of posterity.12
This, as Bacon notes, could appear at variance with his main tradi­
tion, but he seems to see the two as reconciled in the preface to a
work that he believed to be by Boethius.
Although many, and almost all the common authors, grant this, citing
works known to them, yet if one turns over the histories back to the
earliest times, one will find that in Book I of the Antiquities Josephus
determines that this science was discovered at the beginning of the
world by the sons of Adam, before the Flood. And Varro the most
skilled of the Latins grants this. And Boethius, at the beginning of his
Practical Geometry, relates the common rationale of its discovery, as given
above, on account of the Nile, but he approves Varro’s opinion, who
testifies that it had been possessed for long ages before this.13
11 CM, 120.
12 George Molland, “Roger Bacon’s Geometria Speculated', Vestigia Mathematica: Studies
in Medieval and Early Modem Mathematics in Honour of H.L.L. Busard, ed. M. Folkerts
and J.P. Hogendijk (Amsterdam, 1993), 265-303, at 296-297; cf. M. Clagett, “King
Alfred and the Elements of Euclid”, Isis, 45 (1954), 269-277, at 273-274. For the
nomenclature “Adelard III” see M. Clagett, “The Medieval Latin Translations from
the Arabic of the Elements of Euclid, with Special Emphasis on the Versions of Adelard
of Bath”, Isis, 44 (1953), 16-42. Although there is substantial doubt about Adelard’s
authorship of, especially, Adelard II, it seems to me fairly safe to ascribe Adelard III
to him.
13 Molland, ibid. For the reference to “Boethius” see J.P. Migne, Patrologiae Cursus
Completus. .. . Series prima (Paris, 1844-93), LXIII, 1352-53.
156 GEORGE MOLLAND
Whatever we may think of this reconciliation, it is clear that Euclid
is a pivotal figure in Bacon’s historical picture of mathematics, as
Aristotle was in that of knowledge in general. However, whereas Bacon
took pains to find as little fault with Aristotle as possible, this reverence
was not extended to Euclid, with whom Bacon was prepared to take
issue on a number of points: he clearly had not been granted the
same special divine illuminations that had assuredly favoured Aristotle.
But we leave this topic in abeyance for the moment, while giving
a more general (though unexhaustive) survey of Bacon’s mathemati­
cal authorities (excluding those on astronomy).14 Among ancient authors
Bacon mentions Theodosius for spherics, Vitruvius for architecture,
and a work De conductibus aquarum (perhaps by Philo of Byzantium),
but there is little sign that he used any of them, at least in a stricdy
mathematical context, and the same applies to Euclid’s Data, which
Bacon mentions (under the title De quantitatibus datis), as well as the
Elements. On the other hand he does employ Ptolemy’s Optics for
geometrical purposes. Bacon also refers to De Curvis Superficiebus
Archimenidis and Liber Piramidum Apollonii. Both these works are deriva­
tive from rather than by their cited ancient authors. The first is usually
ascribed to a certain Johannes de Tinemue15 (on whom a little more
below), and the second is a fragment on conic sections16 prefaced by
Gerard of Cremona to his translation of Alhazen’s De speculis combu-
rentibus, which conveniently brings us to the Arabs. The mathemati­
cal influence of Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham) is of course pervasive in
Bacon’s optical discussions, but he also often mentions the above
short work on parabolic mirrors, though without himself displaying
much technical knowledge of conic sections. He makes rather more
use of Gerard of Cremona’s translation of the commentary on Euclid
by Anaritius (al-Nayrizi), who also introduced him to some of Sim­
plicius’s mathematical views. Although Bacon usually uses the version
of Euclid known as Adelard II (now more plausibly ascribed to Robert
of Chester),17 he does from time to time appeal to the (partial) trans­
lation accompanying Anaritius’s commentary. Both al-Farabi’s De
14 The principal references for this part of the chapter are CM, 42-49, 157-159,
and Molland, “Bacon’s Geometria Speculativa”, 266-267.
15 It is edited and translated into English by M. Clagett, Archimedes in the Middle
Ages (Vol. I, Madison, 1964; Vols. II-V , Philadelphia, 1976-84), I, 439-520.
16 Edited in Clagett, Archimedes, IV, 3-13.
17 See H.L.L. Busard & M. Folkerts, Robert of Chester’s (?) Redaction of Euclid’s Elements:
The So-Called Adelard I I Version (Basel, 1992).
ROGER BACON S KNOWLEDGE OF MATHEMATICS 157
Scientiis and the De Ortu Scientiarum ascribed to him are often appealed
to, usually on classificatory themes, although, as we shall see, one of
his references is seriously misleading—or at least very puzzling. He
also refers unspecifically to algebraic or algorithmic works, which must
derive either proximately or remotely from Arabic originals.
Among the Latins, Boethius is Bacon’s most respected authority,
especially for arithmetic and music. On the former subject he also
often appeals to Jordanus (although unfortunately without giving any
biographical indications on this enigmatic figure), but says that he
drew from the founts of Boethius and also was liable to include too
many superfluities. Besides this, Bacon mentions Jordanus De Triangulis,
which in a more pristine form was usually known as the Philotegni,18
but there is little sign that he actually used it, and the same applies
to his citations of a De isoperimetris (which in its original Latin form
was a direct translation from the Greek), and an otherwise unknown
work De replentibus locum, although Bacon did spend much time dis­
cussing, in an Aristotelian context, problems of filling place.19
I now move to two passages where Bacon, at least apparently,
singles out certain contemporary mathematicians for special praise.
The,first comes from the Opus Tertium, and reads as follows: “There
are only two perfect [mathematicians], namely Master John of London
and Master Peter of Maricourt (Petrus de Maharii curia), a Picard;
another two are good, namely Master Campanus of Novara and
Master Nicholas, the teacher of the Lord Amaury de Montfort.”20
The context is the necessity of having excellent mathematicians, but
there are problems with the passage. O f five relevant manuscripts
two (including what I regard as the best) present this as a marginal
note, and of the three others two insert it in one place in the text
and one in another. It thus clearly originated as a gloss, and, although
I am strongly inclined to attribute it to Bacon himself, we cannot be
absolutely sure, and it could have been made considerably later than
1267, at about which time the original composition of the Opus Tertium
is dated. The second passage is from the first recension of the Communia
18 Clagett, Archimedes, V, 145-477.
19 A.G. Molland, “An Examination of Bradwardine’s Geometry”, Archive for His­
tory of Exact Sciences, 19 (1978), 113-175, at 171-172, reprinted in my Mathematics and
the Medieval Ancestry of Physics (Aldershot, 1995).
20 I work from the new edition and English translation that I am preparing of
this work. A Latin text of the passage is printed in Opera Quaedam Hactenus Inedita,
ed. Brewer, 34—35.
 158 GEORGE MOLLAND
ROGER BACON’S KNOWLEDGE OF MATHEMATICS 159

Mathematica, in the context of how conventional mathematical education

James accordingly conjectured that this John of London should be
included the learning of an inordinate number of useless propositions.
identified with Roger’s pupil John, whom he had specially educated
Bacon continued: “Because the books and teachers of mathematics
and had sent as courier to the Pope. James drew attention to the
insist on the multiplication of conclusions and demonstrations, no
fact that early antiquarians and bibliographers referred to Bacon’s
one can arrive at knowledge of this science in the common way unless
pupil as John of London, and suggested that they may have had
he devotes 30 or 40 years, as is plain in those who have flourished
access to sources no longer extant. He was, however, understandably
in these sciences, like the lord Robert of happy memory, lately Bishop
loath to identify him with the perfect mathematician mentioned in
of the Church of Lincoln [i.e. Grosseteste], and Brother Adam Marsh,
the Opus Tertium, since at the time he would have been too young
and Master John Bandoun, and the like.” The intent is not unambigu­
for the description. But if this gloss was added at a much later date,
ously laudatory, and so {pace Easton) we should not expect the pas­
the reference is plausible, although still highly conjectural. What is
sage to include a complete listing of contemporary excellent mathe­
certain is that Bacon’s pupil cannot be identified with John Bandoun,
maticians. But let us run through the names mentioned in the two
for it was Bacon’s pride and joy that he had educated his John by
passages.
a very effective and speedy method.23
John of London and John Bandoun. I couple these names together since
Peter of Maricourt (Petrus Peregrinus). It is not surprising to see this spe­
there has been an understandable tendency to think that they may
cial hero of Bacon’s listed as a perfect mathematician, and his inclu­
well have been the same person. A recent example of this is Wilbur
sion increases one’s confidence that the gloss was the work of Bacon
Knorr, who would go further and identify them both with Johannes
himself. The only extant works ascribed to Peter are the famous letter
de Tinemue, the above-mentioned author of the geometrical work
on magnetism, and a work on the construction of the astrolabe.
De curvis superficiebus; Knorr also ascribes other geometrical works to
However, Bacon’s eulogies, even allowing for exaggeration, make clear
the composite figure, including a recension of the Adelard III ver­
that his range was far wider. He is particularly praised as a master
sion of Euclid.21 While not wishing flatly to contradict this thesis, I
of experiments [dominus experimentorum), and, associated with this, for
confess to being unconvinced. There also seem to be argumenta a silentio
his work on alchemy. But mathematics also entered his ambit, for
against it in that Bacon fails to mention John in connection with the
instance in his work on astronomical instruments (and probably more
De Curvis Superficiebus Archimenidis or the Adelard III version of Euclid,
generally in astronomy), and in his construction of a parabolic buring
which he refers to as the editio specialis of Alardus Bathoniensis. In
mirror, for which Bacon implied that he used Alhazen’s quite sophisti­
the course of his article Knorr notes an intriguing possibility raised
cated De Speculis Comburentibus.24 Bacon was certainly acquainted with
by M.R. James in his work on the ancient libraries of Canterbury
Peter and very much influenced by him, but it remains a moot point
and Dover.22 James remarked on the large number of books that
as to how much this was the case in mathematics. As we noted above,
were given to St Augustine’s Abbey at Canterbury by a certain John
S.C. Easton used the absence of Peter from Bacon’s list in the first
of London, who was at some stage a monk there. Many of the works
recension of the Communia Mathematica as evidence for an early dat­
in the manuscripts were of a mathematical or astronomical nature,
ing (he suggests 1257) of that work,25 but I think it could as easily be
and the collection also exhibited a strong Baconian connection in
explained by his not having taken 30 or 40 years to learn mathematics.
containing both works by Roger Bacon and ones (such as that by
Petrus Peregrinus on the magnet) in which he had a strong interest.
23 See especially Opus Maius, ed. Bridges, III, 23-25. On John see also F. Picavet,
Essais sur I’Histoire Generate et Comparees des Theobgies et Phibsophies Medievales (Paris,
21 W.R. Knorr, ‘John of Tynemouth alias John of London: Emerging Portrait of 1913), ch. 12.
24 Opus Maius, ed. Bridges, I, 116. cf. A.G. Molland, “Roger Bacon as Magician”,
a Singular Medieval Mathematician”, British Journalfor the History of Science, 23 (1990),
293-330. Traditb, 30 (1974), 445-460, at 454-5, reprinted in Molland, Mathematics and the
22 James, Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover, lxxiv-lxxvii. Medieval Ancestry of Physics.
25 Easton, Roger Bacon, 88.
160 GEORGE MOLLAND
Campanus of Novara. It is less clear that Bacon knew Campanus per­
sonally,26 and on the whole I am inclined to think not, since he used
his work without apparendy being conscious of the fact, although
one then still has to ask how he formed his good opinion of him—
perhaps it could be from his work in astronomy rather than pure
mathematics. Bacon’s use of Campanus is a little complicated, but
we may immediately dismiss Steele’s assumption that the influence
was the other way round, and that Campanus was drawing on the
first recension of Bacon’s Communia Mathematica. In this connection
Steele made special note of Proposition V.8 from Campanus’s version
of Euclid’s Elements, but Bacon had shortly before been discussing
how mathematics had been made unnecessarily hard to learn by the
multiplication of useless conclusions and demonstrations,27 and his
reason for including the demonstration of V.8 was as an example of
such otiosity. “I shall include the eighth demonstration for one of
the ten causes given, namely that there may be seen the horrible
cruelty of demonstrations that reigns in this book, so that such damn­
able consumption of time may be avoided.”28 Also, as I have argued
elsewhere,29 Campanus’s V.8 can be seen as an important stage in
his getting to understand how the famous Eudoxean criteria for the
equality and inequality of ratios actually operated, for the relevant
definitions at the beginning of Book V had been badly garbled in
the version that he received. There is little sign that Bacon understood
or had much patience with these criteria, and indeed, as we shall
see, his own approach to the comparison of ratios was antithetical to
Euclid’s. As noted above, Adelard II was Bacon’s customary version
of the Elements, and it seems to be only in the case of Book V that
he employed Campanus’s version, which became the standard one
for the later Middle Ages. However, he does not seem conscious that
he is using a work of Campanus, but speaks as if he were quoting
Euclid himself, nor does he even mention that he is using a different
version from usual. I do not know the reason for this, nor why he
26 F.S. Benjamin & G.J. Toomer. Campanus of Novara and Medieval Planetary Theory:
Theorica planetarum (Madison, 1971), suggest that they may have met during a pos­
sible visit of Campanus to England in 1265-68, but quite probably Bacon was in
Paris for all this time.
27 On this point see further my “Roger Bacon’s Appropriation of Past Mathematics”.
28 CM, 125; cf. 120.
29 A.G. Molland, “Campanus and Eudoxus; or, Trouble with Texts and Q uan­
tifiers”, Physis, 25 (1983), 213-225, espec. p. 220, reprinted in Molland, Mathematics
and the Medieval Ancestry o f Physics.
ROGER BACON’S KNOWLEDGE OF MATHEMATICS 161
apparently only uses this part of Campanus’s Euclid, but one might
suspect a codicological explanation.
Bacon’s putative use of Campanus does not end with the Elements,
for he also quotes verbatim from a work on ratios that is ascribed to
Campanus in some manuscripts, and also by H.L.L. Busard in his
modem edition of the treatise.30 This work is one of several medieval
tracts that typically included a set of 18 conclusions which follow
from the assertion that the ratio of A to B is composed of those of
C to D and E to F. It then follows for example that A:C is com­
posed of B:D and E:F, and that C:F is composed of A:B and D:E.
Many of the treatises include arguments concerning the possible per­
mutations of the six terms involved, and both Campanus (assuming
that he was indeed the author) and Bacon arrive at 360 possible
modes of composition, most of which represent invalid inferences from
the original equality. There remain 36 valid modes, or alternatively
18 if one does not count those formed by simple inversion of the
three ratios. Both Campanus and Bacon refer to these as useful modes
(:modi utiles) as opposed to the multitude of useless (inutiles) ones. Bacon
partly quotes Campanus verbatim, and partly appears to develop a
parallel argument on his own, though it could be that he is quoting
from another text, since (and this brings us to the next point) he says
that he has been gathering from each translation of Thabit’s book
(ex utraque tanslatione libri Tebit). This and other remarks reveal that
Bacon thought that he was drawing not on Campanus, but on a
work by Thabit ibn Qurra called Liber de Kata. Thabit ibn Qurra did
indeed write on the 18 modes in a work known in Latin as the De
Jigura sectore. F.J. Carmody has identified three Latin translations of
this, of which that by Gerard of Cremona has been edited by A.A.
Bjombo.31 There is no reason to suppose that Bacon used any of
these, even though the word kata is a rendering of the Arabic word
that is translated into Latin as sector. The Campanus text is ascribed
in at least one manuscript to Thabit, and in an Oxford manuscript
it is given the title Tractatus de proportione et proportionalitate de kata coniuncta
et disiuncta. Interestingly and perhaps significantly the manuscript is
30 CM, 129-140; H.L.L. Busard, “Die Traktate De proportionibus von Jordanus
Nemorarius und Campanus”, Centaurus, 5 (1971), 193-227.
31 Francis J. Carmody, The Astronomical Works of Thabit b. Qurra (Berkeley, 1960),
150-164; Axel Bjombo, Thabits werk fiber den Transversalensatz (liber deJigura sectore), ed.
H. Burger & K. Kohl, Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und
der Medizin, Heft 7 (Erlangen, 1924).
162 GEORGE MOLLAND
one of those that was given to St Augustine’s Abbey at Canterbury
by the monk John of London.32
Master Nicholas. Bacon describes him as the teacher of Amaury de
Montfort, who must be taken to be the son rather than the elder
brother of Simon de Montfort.3334This Nicholas may be the same as
the Nicholaus Grecus, a member of the Grosseteste circle, who assisted
Grosseteste in his translating activities, and himself translated the
pseudo-Aristotelian De mundoN In that case Bacon probably derived
his assessment from personal acquaintance, and I know of no other
testimony to Nicholas’s mathematical abilities.
Robert Grosseteste and Adam Marsh. Bacon asserts that both of these had
a laborious mathematical education before they could be said to
flourish in that field. It is no surprise that Bacon does mention them
as having flourished, for they were special heroes of his, and prob­
ably had a strong influence on his rather surprising decision to join
the Franciscan order, even if Bacon did not actually know Grosseteste
personally. Neither Grosseteste nor Marsh is known to have written
much on pure mathematics, but Grosseteste’s works in other fields
are infused with a particularly strong mathematical spirit, which made
the subject essential for his ideals of scientific explanation. In the
case of Adam Marsh we have virtually no extant writings, but, even
allowing for some exaggeration, Bacon’s testimony should allow us
to assume that he was at least highly competent mathematically.35
III. Classification and Pedagogy
In addition to discussing their origins Bacon held that it was a func­
tion of metaphysics to consider the ordering of the sciences. Bacon’s
32 On all this see Busard, “Die Traktate De proportionibus”, 198; James, Ancient
Libraries o f Canterbury and Dover, 226, 517; H.O. Coxe, Catalogue Codicum MSS. qui in
Collegiis Aulisque Oxoniensibus Hodie Adsewantur (Oxford, 1852), II, 14—15. The manu­
script in question is Oxford, Corpus Christi College 41.
33 Cf. Knorr, “John of Tynemouth”, 304.
34 Cf. Ex Rerum Anglicarum Scriptoribus Saeculi X III, ed. F. Liebermann, Monumenta
Germaniae Historica, Scriptorum, XXVIII (Hannover, 1888; repr. Stuttgart & New
York, 1964), 575.
35 For a somewhat different view see Easton, Roger Bacon, 208-209.
ROGER BACON S KNOWLEDGE OF MATHEMATICS 163
own view of this was strongly influenced by practical considerations,
for in this field as in others Bacon always had an eye to the ends of
the sciences, and inter alia this meant that it was especially important
for a Christian not to waste his time on useless conclusions and
demonstrations. “Authors have published more [in mathematics] than
in other sciences, and out of the curiosity of human singularity have
digressed to many things that are not necessary, and especially to
Christians. For nothing is necessary to a Christian other than on
account of his soul’s salvation, and so fewer of the parts of philosophy
are to be conceded to them than to infidel philosophers, who have
often strayed from the truth.”36 In fact experience was often a better
guide to mathematical truth than formal demonstrations, and Bacon
held that mathematics was subject to his general rule that the empiri­
cal dimension was essential to proper knowledge. “Argument does not
suffice but experience does, and this is evident in mathematics where
there is the most powerful demonstration. But he who has a most
powerful demonstration about the equilateral triangle without expe­
rience will not in his soul adhere to the conclusion, nor care for it,
but ignore it until a test (experientia) is given to him by the intersection
of two circles, from either section of which two fines are drawn to
the extremities of a given fine: then the man receives the conclusion
with all contentment.”37 The reference is to the very first proposition
of Euclid’s Elements, which was often cited in philosophical discussions.
The last quotation was from one of Bacon’s discussions of experi­
mental science, which had for him a very high order of dignity, taking
its place just before moral philosophy. Mathematics by contrast was
comparatively lowly in his scheme of knowledge and order of learn­
ing. It was not quite innate, but did not require much sophisticated
preparation.
After the necessity of languages I posit mathematics to be in the second
place necessary for knowing those things that are to be known. It is
not known to us by nature, but yet among all the sciences that we
know by discovery and teaching it is near to natural cognition, for its
theorising is easier than in all other sciences, since boys immediately
grasp these sciences, as we see, and Aristotle says this in Ethics VII, but
this is not so for natural, metaphysical and other sciences. Moreover
36 CM, XVI, 116-117. For further discussion of this theme see my “Roger Bacon’s
Appropriation”.
37 Opus maius, ed. Bridges, II, 168.
 164 GEORGE MOLLAND ROGER BACON’S KNOWLEDGE OF MATHEMATICS 165

laymen easily know how to figure, number, sing and use musical instru­ they must be understood as speaking of the order of nature rather
ments, and how to dance and make gestures appropriate to singing than that of teaching. Moreover, a question of nobility is involved,
and the sound o f instruments. And these are all works of mathematics. for it is open to the practical astronomer to command the geometer
Therefore it must be an easy science and almost innate or near to
innate cognition. And on this account it follows that it is the first of
and arithmetician to produce tables and instruments for him, which
the sciences, without which the others cannot be known, because that only he is really competent to use.
is naturally first which is common to clerks and laymen, and which is
appropriate to the youthful state.38
IV. Consequences of Communality
Such passages provide an important reminder, that, although it was
epistemologically a vital servant to the other sciences, mathematics
It is Bacon’s separation of a realm of common mathematical that is
for Bacon was by no means their queen.
most original to his division of mathematics, and understandably this
Within the subject also Bacon had interesting classificatory views,
had consequences for his treatment of the subject. This often pro­
which were again pedagogically related. His first division of it was
vided opportunities for berating Euclid, for he had written a book
into things common to the whole of mathematics and those proper
that Bacon, following al-Farabi calls the Book of Elements and Roots,
to its more specialised areas. In this connection he was fond of citing
Aristotle to the effect that, “There is innate in us a way of knowing but because there are not contained there only those things that are
from the more common to the proper”, although this quotation in common to the special parts of mathematics, but there is descent to
fact came from a florikgium rather than from Aristotle himself.39 Bacon the special things of geometry and arithmetic, it does not deserve so
properly to be called Book of Elements as a treatise that only has roots
gives as his authority for the division the De scientiis of al-Farabi, but that are common to all parts of mathematics, and does not descend to
I have been unable to find a justification for this. Although there are the conclusions of any special part, on which account that common
hints of it in various earlier writings, including Aristotle and Gros­ part must deservedly be called Book of Roots and Elements with respect to
seteste, it is particularly reminiscent of Proclus’s commentary on the all the parts of mathematics.41
first book of Euclid’s Elements, but so far as is known this work was
Mathematics was the science dealing with quantity, but this could
not available in Latin in the Middle Ages, and I think it unlikely
not be rightly understood without the meanings of such terms as
that Bacon would have used the Greek text without vociferously telling
“together”, “contiguous”, “continuous”, “finite”, “infinite”, “position”,
the reader that he had done so.40 Although the division is fundamen­
“straight”, “curved”, “convex”, “concave”. Bacon complained that
tal to both recensions of the Communia Mathematica, it scarcely appears
these terms (most of which will be very familiar to a reader of Anstotle)
in the works for the Pope, which seems to me another reason for
had been omitted by Euclid, who perversely started with a definition
dating the first version of the Communia to after 1267.
of a point, an understanding of which was in any case (in Bacon’s
After the initial division, the proper parts of mathematics are divided
view) posterior to the description of a line.
into theoretical and practical, and then each of these subdivided into
Quantity was for Bacon, as for Aristotle, primarily that by which
the traditional parts of the continuum, geometry, arithmetic, astron­
things were said to be equal or unequal, but ever since the Pythagorean
omy and music. Bacon is insistent on this order, for, by his asser­
discovery of incommensurability there had been a rigid dichotomy
tion, the study of things musical is more difficult than that of things
between discrete quantities (such as numbers) and continuous quan­
astronomical, and geometry must precede arithmetic pedagogically.
tities (such as lines). The former were the concern of arithmetic (and
If Anstode and Boethius seem to place arithmetic as prior to geometry,
music), and the latter of geometry (and astronomy). Whereas, given
any two numbers, there was a certain quantity, even if only unity,
38 Opus tertmm, 105 in Brewer’s edition. that would fit into each an integral number of times, this did not
39 Jacqueline Hamesse, Les Auctoritates AristoteUs: Un Florilege Medievale: Etude Historique
et Edition Critique (Louvain & Paris, 1974), 140. Cf. Aristotle, Physica I. 1, 184a 16-18.
40 For further discussion of this problem see my “Roger Bacon’s Appropriation”. 41 Molland, “Bacon’s Geometria Speculation”, 268-269.
166 GEORGE MOLLAND
apply universally to lines, as for example the side and diagonal of a
square, something which in modem mathematical language we would
be inclined to refer to as the irrationality of V2. Bacon of course
acknowledged this distinction, but in common with writers such as
Proclus before him, and innumerable later ones, from the Renais­
sance onwards, he insisted that there were many things that could
be said about quantity in general, and which accordingly belonged
to common mathematics.
Not surprisingly the theory of proportion was a prime field for
common mathematics, and Bacon was in accord with a general
medieval tendency towards seeing Book V of Euclid’s Elements as
dealing with quantity in general, rather than just with continuous
quantity, or magnitude (magnitudo) as it was usually called, and
Campanus had made a point of emphasising the variety of quanti­
tative genera in which ratios could be found. But, if discrete and con­
tinuous quantity were thus to be brought more closely together, there
was a strong temptation to give a privileged position to the way in
which arithmetic treated ratios. Boethius’s account (deriving from
earlier Greek traditions) was extremely cumbersome, but at least its
general intention was clear: it strove to give an expression of the size
of a ratio in numerical terms—its denomination (denominatio) as it was
conventionally termed. On the other hand, because of the difficulties
associated with irrational ratios Euclid (probably following Eudoxus
of Cnidus) had laid down very sophisticated criteria for equating ratios,
whether rational or irrational, with each other. Unfortunately his
account had been garbled by the time that it reached the Latin Middle
Ages, and although, as I have argued elsewhere, Campanus seems to
have acquired a good understanding of Euclid’s actual intent, his
commentary on the relevant definitions is, to the say the least, obfus­
cating.42 Unsurprisingly Bacon, who in this area at least was not in­
clined to dwell on logical niceties, was unimpressed. He came down
clearly against Euclid, and in favour of giving primacy to the arith­
metical, denominational criterion for the equality of ratios.
A great difficulty occurs to those learning Euclid’s Book V, because
before the definition o f ratio the species of greater and lesser inequality
42 Molland, “Campanus and Eudoxus”. Cf. J.E. Murdoch, “The Medieval Lan­
guage of Proportions: Elements of the Interaction with Greek Foundations and the
Development of New Mathematical Techniques”, Scientific Change, ed. A.C. Crombie
(London, 1963), 237-271.
ROGER BACON’S KNOWLEDGE OF MATHEMATICS 167
are not put forward, since the rationale of ratios is only evident in
these species, and because also there is not explained what is a certain
ratio in numbers and in continuous quantities, following the manner
already given, in finding to the extent of our power an indivisible in
continuous quantities, just as there exists one by nature in discrete
quantities.43
Such a policy might indeed make things easier for students, but it
also had the effect of leaving irrational ratios in limbo, or at least
only to be treated by approximation.
In the next century ways were found of numerically denominating
many irrational ratios, notably by Thomas Brawardine and Nicole
Oresme. These depended on a particular interpretation of the process
of compounding ratios.44 It was generally agreed that if the ratio A:B
was compounded with the ratio B:C (where A is greater than B, and
B greater than C) the result was A:C. To us, who chacteristically
view ratios as fractions, it is natural to regard this as multiplication,
and this is the interpretation that Bacon, in common with the
Campanus De proportionibus discussed above, adopts. But another inter­
pretation was available, which flowed naturally from the musical
tradition, in which composition of ratios was regarded as addition.
This gave a different meaning to the idea of multiplying and divid­
ing ratios by whole numbers, for whereas in the multiplicative inter­
pretation half of 16:1 would be 8:1 in the additive interpetation it
would be 4:1. And in the latter interpretation half of 2:1 would
correspond to our V2, and describe the ratio of the diagonal of a
square to its side. Ironically, if Bacon had read his hero Grosseteste
rather more carefully, he might have come to a similar interpreta­
tion, for Grosseteste had said that this ratio was “a certain combina­
tion (collado) by comparison to denomination by number, for it is
half of the double ratio.”45
Bacon’s own thrust was more towards a direct assimilation of the
continuous and the discrete rather than to a probing exploration of
43 CM, 80.
44 A.G. Molland, “The Geometrical Background to the ‘Merton School’: An
Exploration into the Application of Mathematics to Natural Philosophy in the Four­
teenth Century”, British Journalfor the History of Science, 4 (1968-69), 108-125; Molland,
“Examination of Bradwardine’s Geometry”; E.D. Sylla, “Compounding Ratios:
Bradwardine, Oresme and the First Edition of Newton’s Pnncipia", Transformation and
Tradition in the Sciences, ed. E. Mendelsohn (Cambridge, 1984), 11-43.
45 Robert Grosseteste, Commentarius in Posteriorum Analyticorum Libros, ed. P. Rossi
(Florence, 1981), 119-120.
 168 GEORGE MOLLAND
the former’s own proper mysteries. In this, as hinted above, he was
continuing a common medieval tendency noted by J.E. Murdoch.46
Murdoch points out how a definition of communicating numbers was
inserted into Book VII (one of the arithmetical books) in many versions
of Euclid’s Elements. We should call such numbers those that are not
mutually prime, but what is interesting for our present purposes is
that the adjectives communicantes and incommunicantes were also and more
commonly used to denote continuous quantities that were mutually
commensurable or mutually incommensurable. The common mean­
ing then for both numbers and magnitudes is that two of a kind are
communicating if they have a common measure, other than unity in the
case of numbers. Bacon adopts this approach wholeheartedly, and in a
string of enunciations of propositions from Book VII he regularly
replaces the term numerus by quantitas and the phrase contra se primi
(mutually prime) by incommunicantes or incommensurabiles. In this way
he hoped to form by amalgamation basic principles for his common
mathematics. Many in later ages would have been able to sympathise
with his general aim, while still wishing to censure the cavalier, if
not crude, way in which he dismissed the labyrinthine subtleties of
the infinite, which have been such an important charm to so many
pure mathematicians.
V. Geometry and Conclusion
Bacon’s Communia Mathematica was intended as part of Volume II of
his repeated attempt at a grand synthesis of knowledge, variously
referred to as Compendium Phibsophiae, Scriptum Principale, Compendium
Studii TTieologiae, etc.47
After I delivered up grammar according to different languages according
as they are of value, indeed are necessary, to the study of the Latins,
and with these things made ready matters of logic, and in the second
volume treated the parts of mathematics, now in the third there come
up matters o f nature (naturalia), and in the fourth those of metaphysics
together with morals will be attached.48
46 J.E. Murdoch, “The Medieval Euclid: Salient Aspects of the Translations of
Euclid by Adelard of Bath and Campanus of Novara”, Revue de Synthese, 79 (1968),
67-94, at 86-90.
47 Cf. Little, “Roger Bacon’s Works”, 402-407.
48 Liber Primus Communium Naturalium Fratris Rogeri, Partes Prima et Secunda, ed. Robert
Steele, OHI, II (Oxford, n.d.).
ROGER BACON’S KNOWLEDGE OF MATHEMATICS 169
In this passage from the beginning of the Communia Naturalia Bacon
speaks as if he had completed the mathematical volume, and hence
treated all the special parts of mathematics. But, as is so often the
case with him, this was proleptic. His agile mind darted hither and
thither, and probably he was almost always working on several themes
at the same time. It is no surprise that he would have had little
appetite for labouring patiently through systematic treatments of the
quadrivial sciences in both their theoretical and practical departments.
All that we have is a short, and rather unsystematic, (pure) geometrical
fragment following on the end of the first recension of the Communia.
This is now available in print in Latin and English, and, as regards
geometrical content, I shall confine myself to just two remarks. One
is that, when he gets down to geometrical detail, he is quite capable
of getting immersed in a logical quagmire, which, to all but the most
charitable of readers, must seem more obfuscating than enlightening.
This, as I have discussed elsewhere,49 comes through forcefully in his
discussion of perpendicularity.
The other remark is to note that, while all the Euclidean geometrical
postulates remain (although Bacon, in common with others, thinks that
some are capable of proof), the common notions are much reduced,
as a consequence of his preceding treatise on common mathematics.
Conceptions proper to geometry are few, because almost all are com­
mon to continuous and to discrete quantity, and so were placed ear­
lier, in the treatise on the common things of the whole of mathematics.
But two can be placed here: If one continuous quantity be superposed
to another and applied to it, and neither exceed the other, they will be
mutually equal. This is Euclid’s, and on account of the superposition
and application of one to the other, it is evident that it belongs only
to continua and not to discreta, because the conception of equality
appropriate to discreta and continua was had earlier in the Communia,
and was the first definition assigned there. And Adelard of Bath in a
comment adds another, which is this: “As much as one quantity is to
another, so much any third to be to some fourth. This is to be observed
in continuous quantities, whether the antecedents be greater or less,
for magnitude decreases infinitely” by division, as he alleges, and by
the geometer’s will it can also be imagined to increase infinitely so far
as he wishes, as Aristotle teaches in Physics III.50
This remark, with which the fragment concludes, again gives evi­
dence of Bacon’s strong strategic sense in mathematics. His separating
49 Molland, “Roger Bacon’s Appropriation”.
50 Molland, “Bacon’s Geometria Speculative”, 302-303.
 170 GEORGE MOLLAND
out of a prior realm of common mathematicals was not an arid
technical affair, but an act of considerable boldness, especially for
one who, in some respects more than his contemporaries, put such
an emphasis on ancient authority. For (unless he had access to Proclus
on Euclid) he had only ancient hints to go on, and his programme
involved quite frequent sideswipes at Euclid, who emerges as a much
less respected authority than Aristotle, Ptolemy, Avicenna or Alhazen.
Also the passage just quoted shows Bacon’s consciousness that a sys­
tematic work on geometry would need casting in rather a different
mode from Euclid’s Elements, and it is interesting that he adds an
axiom asserting the existence of a fourth proportional in continuous
quantities, a course that was later to be taken by Christopher Clavius.51
Given this and all his other achievements, it would be unfair to
carp that Bacon did not himself undertake what could often have
been the tedious task of performing this recasting or of presenting a
new version of the other seven mathematical sciences. And while
acknowledging Bacon’s achievements within the bounds of mathe­
matics, it is appropriate to terminate this chapter in accord with
his own spirit by looking once more at the purposes of the subject,
and in particular of geometry. Its theological and physical uses are
propagandised at length in the works for the Pope, but in some ways
the quieter style of the Communia Mathematica can given us greater
insight into how he saw mathematics applying to the physical world.
Unsurprisingly Bacon adopts an Aristotelian abstractionist view of
mathematical objects, but, just as Aristotle was ambivalent as regards
the power of mathematics, so this view can either, as, in the case of
Albertus Magnus,52 allow mathematics a very limited role in physics,
or, as now with Bacon, magnify its physical relevance.
The fourth abstraction is said to be made from matter and motion, so
that, even though the abstracted thing is in corporeal matter, yet it is
not considered as being in it, and thus do theoretical geometry, theo­
retical arithmetic, theoretical music, and the first part that is about the
common things o f mathematics. . . abstract and separate quantity from
all matter and motion, that is, they consider it not as it is in matter
but in itself, as it is something in the nature of things. Nor is this
51 The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements, tr. T.L. Heath (2nd edn., Cambridge, 1926),
II, 170.
52 Cf. A.G. Molland, “Mathematics in the Thought of Albertus Magnus”, Albertus
Magnus and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays 1980, ed. J.A. Weisheipl (Toronto, 1980),
463-478, reprinted in Molland, Mathematics and the Medieval Ancestry of Physics.
ROGER BACON’S KNOWLEDGE OF MATHEMATICS 171
quantity feigned by the imagination, so that it be posited to exist by
itself, for this would be false, because then the consideration would be
useless, for the science of quantity in mathematics is for the sake of
bodies with size, not for the sake of quantity existing outside bodies.53
In Bacon’s time mathematics was applied above all in astronomy,
but with the translation of Alhazen’s Optics, whose influence Bacon
himself did so much to promote, it was also gaining a sophisticated
hold on happenings in the sublunary world. And in a remarkable
passage from the Geometria Speculative/, Bacon acknowledges this two­
fold role while commenting on geometry’s first postulate, “To draw
a straight line from any point to any point, and to produce a finite
line continuously and in a straight line so far as is wished.”
On account of the irregularity or tortuosity or difformity of corporeal
matter in these inferior things, the first [postulate] cannot be reduced by
man to operation, or scarcely and with great difficulty. But it is possible
for operative nature, as in the multiplication of virtue and species in the
things of the world, as in the diffusion of light and rays, which is made
multiplicatively by straight lines in a single body, and also the perpen­
diculars to the first bodies are made in a straight fashion. The geometer
therefore considers the possible paths of nature, because geometry was
first and essentially constituted for the sake of certifying the works of
nature, and thereafter for human works. For the authors of perspective
show us that lines and figures declare to us the whole operation of
nature, its principles and effects. And this is similarly evident by celes­
tial things, which both natural philosophy and astronomy consider. The
geometer therefore does not attend to tortuous sensible matter, but
he understands regular nature as it is in celestials and as nature knows
how to find in its operations in these inferiors, and he imitates the
ways of nature. And thus it was not in the imagination of straight
lines, as Aristotle says in the Posterior Analytics, that the geometer does
not speak of the sensible line but of what is understood through it.54
Here there seems to be some modification, or at least change of
emphasis, from Bacon’s earlier abstractionist account, for now in the
sublunary world the focus is not on material bodies themselves but
on lines of physical action as exemplified in optics. And it is not just
a question of optics, for in Bacon’s view the transmission of light was
just one manifestion of the general doctrine of multiplication of species,
whereby all kinds of action were propagated from one place to another,
53 CM, 59.
54 Molland, “Bacon’s Geometria Speculativa”, 298—301.
 172 GEORGE MOLLAND
including, we may note, astrological and psychic action.55 And it was
in this way that mathematics, although rather a lowly science in itself,
became for Bacon one of the chief servants of what, with little exag­
geration, may be called his physical science of sciences.
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------ . “Roger Bacon’s Appropriation of Past Mathematics”, Tradition, Transmis­
sion, Transformation: Cultural Exchange in the Premodem World, ed. S.J. Livesey &
FJ. Ragep (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 347-365.
174 GEORGE MOLLAND
Murdoch, J.E. “The Medieval Language of Proportions: Elements of the
Interaction with Greek Foundations and the Development of New Mathe­
matical Techniques”, Scientific Change, ed. A.C. Crombie (London: Heine-
mann, 1963), 237-271.
. “The Medieval Euclid: Salient Aspects of the Translations of Euclid
by Adelard of Bath and Campanus o f Novara”. Revue de Synthase, 79 (1968),
67-94. v '
Picavet, F. Essais sur I’Histoire Generate et Comparees des Theologies et Philosophies
Medievales (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1913).
Smith, D.E. “The Place of Roger Bacon in the History of Mathematics”, in
Roger Bacon: Essays, ed. Little, 153-183.
Steele, Robert. “Roger Bacon as Professor: A Student’s Notes”, Isis, 20 (1933)
53-71.
Sylla, E.D. “Compounding Ratios: Bradwardine, Oresme and the First Edi­
tion o f Newton’s Pnncipia”, in Transformation and Tradition in the Sciences, ed.
E. Mendelsohn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 11-43.
Thijssen, J.M.M.H. “Roger Bacon (1214-1292/1297): A Neglected Source
in the Medieval Continuum Debate”, Archives Internationales d’Histoire des
Sciences, 34 (1984), 25-34.
8. ROGER BACON ON ASTRONOMY-ASTROLOGY:
TH E SOURCES OF TH E SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTALIS
Jeremiah Hackett
Roger Bacon wrote at length on astronomy-astrology in three works:
the Opus maius, the Communia mathematka, and the Communia naturalium}
However, he did not set out to write a Treatise on astronomy after
'
the manner of his Perspectwa, and he should not be judged negatively
for not doing so.12 As can be seen from the chapter on Mathematics
above, Bacon was well aware of contemporary “experts” in this field,
and he drew on their work.34*This paper, primarily concerned with
Bacon’s polemic in Opus maius, part four, on the applications of mathe­
matics (astronomy), will be dealing with the manner in which Bacon
adapts traditional sources in astronomy-astrology to the needs of his
new scientia experimental.
Thjs paper is strictly limited to this one topic in these writings.
Thus, it will be limited to providing an account of the polemic in
the Opus maius* and related work in their actual historical context
1 Opus maius, part four, ed. Bridges, 159—269, 376—404; Communia naturalium, Liber
Secundus: De coelestibus, ed. Steele, Fasc. IV, Opera) Communia mathematica, ed. Steele,
Fasc. XVI.
2 John North, Astronomy and Cosmology, (New York & London: W.W. Northon &
Co., 1995 [The Norton History of Science]), 237: There was no one moment of
enlightenment. Roger Bacon (ca. 1219—ca. 1292) introduces a mildly empirical note
into his writings, but he was no astronomer. [While this statement is true in the
sense that Bacon does not rank with Campanus of Novara and others, we should
bear in mind that we have no information about Bacon’s years as the expert on the
Quadrivium at the University of Paris. And as we shall see below, his later years,
especially the 1260’s show us an emeritus Professor located in a difficult battle in a
theological context].
3 See De coelestibus, 395, 423, 446 for his references to older authorities: Ptolemy,
Al-Fraganus, Abu Ma'shar, al-Bategni, Thebit, Arzachel. See also the list in Opus
maius, part four, ed. cit., 235 for some of the same names but especially 242 where
he claims that the vulgus philosophantium attack them: Aristotle, Avicenna, Ptolemy,
Hali the commentator on Ptolemy (= Ahmed ibn Yusuf), Masahalla, Abu Ma'shar
and later (248) the author of the De dispositione spherae [— Geminus]. In a further
study, I will present an account of Bacon’s understanding of his first part of Astron­
omy: speculative Astronomy as found in the De coelestibus.
4 A further paper which will be a study of Bacon’s views on physical astronomy
with a critical comparison of that theory with the views of Albertus Magnus is being
176 JEREMIAH HAGKETT
and in relation to other thinkers such as Albertus Magnus, Thomas
Aquinas and Bonaventure. In this way, I hope to clear the air of a
number of false accusations made by some scholars against the Doctor
mirabilis.
1. Opus maius, Part One: The Polemic
Roger Bacon did not just replace Plato as the authority in Philoso­
phy by installing Aristotle in that position, he also addressed the issue
of the uses of the sciences in the context of the theology of the Latins.5
If we bear this in mind, we can see that he is no pure Astronomer
but rather a propagandist for the advancement of astronomy-astrology
towards its uses in a definite Rhetorical persuasion in Moral philoso­
phy and in religion.
Bacon had a very good historical sense of things. He knew that
in the Ancient world, the intellectual elite had used the combined
resources of astrologia and magic in the affairs of state. He would
have known this from Augustine, De cwitate dei and other works.6 He
acknowledges that “The art of Magic besides was increasing in strength
throughout the whole world, and seizing on people under every form
of superstition and religious fraud; and although it was hated by phi­
losophers and fought by them all, yet the early sacred writers finding
the world occupied with it as well as with philosophy, reckoned
both as the same art, since both in many ways were hindering the
prepared. Thus, the present paper is going to deal strictly with the impact of Astrologia
on Bacon’s notion of an experimental science.
5 This theme and its justification in the 13th century theological context is the
subject-matter of part one of the Opus maius.
6 For this theme in the Ancient Classical world, see G.E.R. Lloyd, Magic, Reason
and Experience: Studies in the Origin and Development of Greek Science, (Cambridge: Cam­
bridge University Press, 1979. Until recently, studies on the issue of astrology in
Augustine were incomplete. This has been rectified in some recent studies: see Bernard
Bruning OSA, “De L’Astrologie a la Grace,” in Collectanea augustiniana-Melanges T.J.
Van Bavel, eds. B. Bruning, M. Lamberigts, J. Van Houten, (Louvain: Institut
Historique Augustinjen), 574—643. This study will rank as one of the most clear­
headed and useful on the topic of Augustine and Astrology; Thomas O ’Loughlin,
“The libri Philosophorum and Augustine’s Conversions,” in Thomas Finan & Vincent
Twomey, The Relationship Between Neoplatonism and Christianity, (Dublin: Four Courts
Press, 1992), 101-125 for the central role astrology had in the early Augustine; Ibid.,
“Astrology and Thirteenth Century Philosophy: A New Angle on an Old Problem,”
in Milltown Studies (Dublin), 33 (Spring, 1994), 89-110. This work will be referenced
below as O ’Loughlin, “Astrology. . . .”
ROGER BACON ON ASTRONOMY-ASTROLOGY 177
fruit of faith.”7 Because of this, Christianity rejected the sciences and
philosophy due to the abusers of those subjects, and thus, it did not
receive a full complement of the works of science and philosophy
until quite recently in Bacon’s times. Bacon therefore sets out to prove
that “the holy patriarchs and prophets at the beginning of the world
received all the sciences from God . . . to the end that, when the
faith of Christ was introduced and the fraudulence of the art of Magic
was purged away, the power of philosophy might be advantageously
applied to divine things.”8 And he adds: “Neither the sacred doctors
made use of the splendid sciences of philosophy, nor did their succes­
sors, Gratian, the Master of the Sentences (Peter Lombard), the Master
of the Histories (Peter Comestor), Hugh of St Victor and Richard of
St Victor. For they had not been translated in their times, nor were
they in use among the Latins, and therefore these men neglected
them, and did not know how to judge their dignity in regard to
sacred mysteries. Rather, due to prejudice, they rejected that of which
they had no experience, and in many places speak against these
sciences, taking occasion to so all the more due to the fact that sacred
doctors neglected the same sciences, doubtless because these works
had not been translated in their time, and because the church neglected
to order them to be translated for the five reasons mentioned previ­
ously.”9 However, the “Modernes vero doctores vulgi” also neglect
these sciences even though they have already been translated. They
delight in the works of the trivium and ignore the Rhetoric and Poetics.
Further, they utterly neglect “the nine sciences of Mathematics and
the six great Natural Sciences . . . and the four very excellent divi­
sions of morals.” Thus, they solve their problems by mere appeals to
authority. In this Bacon, reflects clearly the “new” attitude to truth
proposed by Adelard of Bath.10*Experience and reason and proper
scientific authority is the only route to knowledge in the sciences.
Bacon appeals to Pope Clement IV to use his power to change the
situation in the Universities so that sciences of experiences, based on
the latest translations, should be carefully studied.
7 Opus maius, part one, ed. Bridges, Vol. Ill, 31-2: Insuper ars magica per totum
orbem invalescens, occupans homines in omni superstitione et fraude religionis. . . .
8 Ibid., eh. xiv, 32.
9 Ibid., ch. xv, 33.
10 Ed. cit., ch. ii, 5: Nam in libro Quaestionum naturalium Adalardi quaeritur de
auctoritate fragili, “Quid est aliud auctoritas hujusmodi quam capistrum? See recent
works by Charles Burnett on Adelard of Bath: these have set out the basis for a
scientific account of 12th century English scientists.
178 JEREMIAH HACKETT
This opening polemic in Opus maius sets the scene for the discus­
sion of astronomy/Astrology in Opus maius, part four. In Bacon’s view,
Aristode has replaced Plato as the auctor in philosophy and the newly
translated Sciences from Greek and Arabic have replaced the weak
Latin learning in these matters. But the Vulgus philosophantium et
theologorum at Paris still in 1266 neglect both Aristode and these new
sciences. Here, it is important to indicate that while they did study
parts of Aristode, the history of the condemnation of the new sciences
and occult sciences did continue up to 1277, where this issue plays
a much greater role than the literature on this topic has admitted.
Thus, despite the fact that the Statutes of the English Nation man­
dated the study of the works of Aristode at Paris by 1255, other
works, particularly in the sciences were not accepted by what Bacon
called the vulgus philosophantium.
Still, a very interesting item is present here. Bacon knew quite
well from the De civitate dei and elsewhere that Augustine had made
a strong and spirited criticism of Astrologia and its uses in human and
ecclesiastical matters. He would have known that Grosseteste in his
important Hexaemeron had condemned the applications of judicial
astronomy (astrology) to human affairs.11123 Hence, his polemic and
his attempt to get around early Christian criticism of these matters,
in order to broaden the scope of a science of experience, a scientia
experimentalis.
11 Robert Grosseteste, Hexaemeron, ed. Richard C. Dales & Servus Gieben O.F.M.
Cap., (London: The British Academy: Oxford University Press, 1982) [Auctores
Britannici Medii Aevi, VI], V, ix, 1-2, 165-6. This passage is very important. Like
Augustine, Grosseteste objects to mathematical prediction of personality based on
the moment of birth (11. 17—23); V, x, 8: Ad hoc, si stelle vel natura vel voluntate
ad malum cogunt, vel malum persuadeant, male sunt. Et si natura male sunt, conditor
eorum Deus maius esse convincitur, quod blasfemum est dicere. Si vero voluntate
male sunt, est in celestibus peccatum et error. Item si valeret constellacio, sicut
fingunt astronomi, periret, ut supra dictum est, libertas arbitrii; similiter cassa esset
providencia et negociatio, et infructuosa pietas et religio Christiana, et ad Deum
facta omnino.
In Opus maius, part four, Bacon would seem to have V, ix, 2 in mind when he
repeats that it is not possible for the astronomer to judge and make statements
about singular fortuitous events. It should be noticed that although Grosseteste firmly
follows Augustine “Contra huiusmodi inanem iudicum . . .,” he does allow for “a
true kind of Astrology,” one in which one studies the effects of the heavens on
natural events and on bodily dispositions, as for example in medicine. See Richard
C. Dales, “Grosseteste’s Views on Astrology,” Mediaeval Studies, 29 (1967), 357-363.
ROGER BACON ON ASTRONOMY-ASTROLOGY 179
2. Bacon’s Definition of Astronomia-Astrologia
We have seen above in the chapter on the classification of the sciences
that Bacon divides Astronomy into three parts. Parts one and two
are concerned with the quantity of the heavenly bodies. Part three is
concerned with the effects of the heavenly bodies on terrestrial events,
and can be called judicial astronomy or astrology. The first part,
therefore, deals with the mathematical principles used in presenting
a theory of the celestial motions such as Ptolemy gives in the Almagest.
This can be called “speculative astronomy.” The second part of theo­
retical Astronomy is called “practical astronomy,” and it has to do
with the uses of canons, astronomical tables and instruments. The
third part of astronomy is concerned with the natural powers of the
heavenly bodies and with their influence on the earth.12 This latter
concerned is addressed explicitly in Opus maius, part four, and in Opus
tertium, and related sections in Opus maius, part six, and in the intro­
duction to the Secretum secretorum.13
3. Bacon’s Defence of Judicial Astronomy (Astrologia):
Opus maius, Part Four
Bacon’s defence of Astrologia is just one item in a complex defence of
the uses of Mathematics in religion (in divinis). He begins his defence
by providing a review of Patristic and early Medieval teaching on the
general application of mathematical knowledge in religious matters.
In this, Bacon, having listed Cassiodorus, Bede, and Isidore of Seville
as support, turns to the De doctrina Christiana of Augustine to argue
that unless the literal sense of things is understood, the moral and mystical
sense, as used in theology, will be mistaken. Citing Augustine in De
doctrina Christiana, book two, he argues that “We should not aspire to
any of the sacred writings without a knowledge of numbers,” and
12 Communia naturalium, I, ed. Steele, 6; Thomas O ’Loughlin, “Astrology. ..,” argues
that Bacon coalesces Isidore’s division of the two parts of astronomia. He correctly
notes that for Albertus and Bacon “the distinction between natural and judicial
Astronomy is not important in practice.” And he contrasts this position with that
of Aquinas. See more on this below. Yet, as we saw above, Bacon’s division of
Astronomy-astrology is more complex than that of Isidore.
13 Opus maius, part four; Opus tertium, ed. Bridges, 27ff.; Opus maius, part six, 166—
222; Secretum secretorum, ed. Steele, 1-27.
180 JEREMIAH HACKETT
“Ignorance of numbers causes many things placed in the Scriptures
with a transferred and mystical meaning not to be understood.”14
Again, he appeals to Cassiodorus and Augustine on the importance
of both music and astronomy. He turns to the latter work where
Augustine states that this science, astronomy, is useful in a threefold
manner, that is, as “a demonstration of the present, a knowledge of
the past, and a reasonable conjecture of the future. The demonstra­
tion of the present consists in the assignment of the properties of
celestial things. Besides a demonstration of the present, it possesses
something like a Narrative of the past, because from the present knowl­
edge and motion of the Stars we can revert regularly to their tracks
in the past. It possesses also conjectures according to the rule of the
future, not full of mistrust and ominous, but definite and certain.”15
Bacon then outlines seven areas in which Mathematics can be
usefully applied in the study of religion, (i) Astronomy provides a
knowledge of the nature of the heavens themselves, the place of
paradise and hell and the influence of the heavens on the earth, (ii)
By means of Geography, which is subalternated to Astronomy, one
can know the places found in the Scriptures. These places have both
a spiritual and literal sense. But we need to know the latter precisely
in order to know the former. Hence, astronomy is a key to Scriptural
meaning, (iii) Religion has need of a knowledge of sacred times, con­
cerning the Creation and the calculation of time, (iv) Chronology:
Jews and Christians uses different ways of reckoning time periods.
Yet, there is a real need to calculate the birth of Christ, (v) Geometrical
forms: Scripture is filled with references to sacred objects: the Ark,
the Tabernacle, the Temple. One needs to know their precise geomet­
rical form in order to know the spiritual meaning. A great example
of this is the Rainbow. It is given as a sign of the Deluge in the Book
of Genesis. But we misunderstand its meaning because we do not
yet know the complete Geometry of the rainbow, which is produced
by solar rays reflected or refracted from raindrops. Direct (incident),
refracted and reflected rays have both literal and spiritual meaning,
and a true knowledge of the latter depends on a good knowledge of
14 Opus mains, part four, ed. Bridges, Vol. I, 178; See Richard Newhauser, “Der
Tractatus de oculo des Petrus von Limoges und seine exempla,” in Walter Haug &
Burghart Wachinger, Exempel und Exempel-Sammlungen, (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1991),
95-136 for the importance of the literal sense and the transfer of this literal sense
to moral and religious meaning.
15 Ibid., 180.
ROGER BACON ON ASTRONOMY-ASTROLOGY 181
the former. Direct rays can compare to the action of grace on the
just. Light is reflected away in the case of the unjust, and it is bent
or refracted in the case of the imperfect human being.16 (vi) Num­
bers: there is much reference to number in Scripture. Knowledge of
the Jewish law requires that one understand numbers. Only a math­
ematician can solve textual problems. Further, calculations are re­
quired for Astronomy concerning the position of the earth and the
heavenly bodies, (vii) Music: this covers both vocal and instrumental
music, including recitation, pronunciation, accent, prose and poetry.
Instruments are important and have a literal and spiritual meaning.
Dancing can be called visible music; it too is important in religion.
Bacon then picks three areas of study to illustrate the applications
of Mathematics, in particular Astronomy/Astrology. They are: I. The
Correction of the Calendar,17 II. Knowledge of Geography,18 III.
Astrology.19
Naturally, it is the third item which was destined to raise serious
questions. Yet, before presenting a resume of a treatise on Astrology
at the end of part four,20 Bacon launches into an apologia for judicial
Astronomy/astrology. It is in the context of this polemic that Bacon
first introduces his notion of a Scientia experimentalis. O ur task now is
to outline the dimensions of this polemic.
4. Roger Bacon’s Apologia for Judicial Astronomy/Astrology
He begins as he did in part one, with an historical review of early
Christian history. He notes that in later times, certain theologians,
16 Ibid., 212-217: Nam Aristoteles magis omnibus philosophantibus nos involvit
suis obscuritatibus in tractando de iride, ut nihil per eum quod dignum sit intelligamus,
immo multa falsa in translatione Latinorum continentur. .. . Et Avicenna dux ac
Princeps philosphiae post Aristotelem, ut clamant omnes, seipsum ignorasse iridis
naturam humiliter confessus est. Et sic de omnibus philosophis certum est, quod
nullus potuit scientiam iridis obtinere. . . . Nam in bonis perfectis infusio gratiae
comparatur luci directe incidenti. .. .
17 See Jennifer Moreton, “Robert Grosseteste and the Calendar,” in James McEvoy,
ed., Robert Grosseteste: New Perspectives on His Thought and Scholarship, ed. cit., 77-88.
18 See below, David Woodward and Herbert W. Howe: Roger Bacon on Geog­
raphy and Cartography.
19 See Thomas O ’Loughlin, “Astrology.. .,” 94-7 on Roger Bacon.
20 Opus mains, part four, ed. cit., 376-403; see Thomas O ’Loughlin, art. cit., 97:
The Tract on Astrology in the Opus maius is so detailed that from it alone most of
the Astrological teachings of the period could be recovered.
 182 JEREMIAH HACKETT
“who were ignorant of the power of philosophy and the fallacies of
Magic,” condemned astrology (judicial astronomy) in their “lectures,
preaching and collations, both private and public.21 This, he believed,
led to the ruin of philosophy, the failure of the Church and Common­
wealth and the inability to convert the unbelievers. Further, in the
eyes of the canon lawyers and theologians, those who practiced Astron­
omy were labeled Magicians. The theologians had “no leisure for
the works of astronomy.”
In other texts, he returned to this theme, and argued that certain
theologians confused true Science and the practice of Magic. For
Bacon, “there was no falsehood in the judgments of Astrology.”22
The names of his contemporary experts in astrology cannot be men­
tioned in public “because of the violence of the mob.”23 And in the
Opus tertium, he tells us that much that he wrote on these matters
were secret and that he dissimulated in regard to astrology and al­
chemy lest his work should fall into the wrong hands.
Above all, these theologians, in Bacon’s view, confused the etymol­
ogy of the word Mathematics (Mathesis). In some works, he noted
that Mathematica was derived from the word Mathesis, written with
the letter t aspirated with a short middle syllable. This was a true
scientific discipline. The word Matesis with a long middle syllable and
written without an aspirate t, according to Bacon, derived from Mantos
or Mantia which are the same as dwinatio. Thus, for him, false mathe­
matics is the second part of Magic.24* This latter is simply pure,
hard determinism at its worst. It holds that the stars control the
human will by utter necessity, the location of one’s birth determines
everything, and that one can predict singular future events with abso­
lute infallibility. This is magical divination. True Mathematics, on
the other hand, (and here he is following Augustine and Robert
Grosseteste), talks about quantity and explains the motions of the
heavens. But while it will speak about the influence of the heavens
21 Ibid., 248: . . et ob hoc earn in lectionibus, praedicationibus et collationibus
publicis et privatis damnantes . . See Theodore Crowley, Roger Bacon. . ., 50fF.
22 Opus minus, ed., Brewer, 320.
23 Ibid., 320.
24 See Opus maius, part four, ed. cit., 239; Opus tertium, ed. Brewer, 27; Secretum
secretorum, ed. Steele, 3. But see E. Nolan & S.A. Hirsch, eds. The Greek Grammar of
Roger Bacon and a Fragment of His Hebrew Grammar, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1902), 117-18 for his change of mind on this etymology; see also Communia
mathematica, ed. Steele, 3. Opus maius, ed. cit., 240: Nam numerantur quinque species
arris magicae, scilicet, mantice, mathematica, malelficium, praestigium, sortilegium.
ROGER BACON ON ASTRONOMY-ASTROLOGY 183
on the earth, it does not presume to judge infallibly about all things,
and especially about human destiny. Bacon’s goal then is to defend
a true mathematics, including a true Astronomy/Astrology. But here,
Bacon does face a problem. He is committed to a theoretical quanti­
tative astronomy, with its practical counterpart, the uses of instru­
ments, canons and tables and to a general, although not particular,
astrologia. That is, he believes that from the actions of the heavens on
the human disposition, one can make “general” or “universal” pre­
dictions about human customs such as kinds of behavior produced
by climatic conditions. But he eschews any prediction of singular
events, certudinaliterP
However, the distinction between (a) a quantitative astronomia/
astrologia and (b) a spurious superstitious astrologia is not original with
Bacon. Therefore, Bacon is not introducing it simply to get around
Augustine’s strictures against astrology. One sees it in Robert Kil-
wardby’s De ortu scientiarum.26 He calls this part the “teachings of the
professors of superstitious astrology.” For Kilwardby as for Bacon,
there is a true astronomia/astrologia. This studies both the quantity of
the heavenly bodies and the natural effects of those bodies on bodily
disposition (complexio), health, weather, and their in-direct affect on
the human mind. The false and superstitious kind of astrologia claims
on the basis of the stars to be able to predict a definite and specific
knowledge of singular events in the future, the hidden present and
the distant past, and also concerning affairs which depended on human
free will.
The crucial question, then, concerning Bacon is: Does he go beyond
these limits set by Robert Kilwardby? Does he accept a kind of deter­
ministic, all-encompassing predictive astrologia wherein, not merely
“general patterns” of disposition, health and weather can be generally
25 See Grosseteste, Hexaemeron, ed. cit., V, x, 2: . .. manifestum est quod non est
astronomo possibile iudicare et pronunciare per constellationes de singulisfortuitis eventus,
aut nati moribus aut eciam naturalibus complexionibus. Bacon agrees in regard to singular
fortuituous events and predictions based on birth, but he still does wish to defend
an account of charater of peoples based on natural disposition. But so too does
Albertus and to some extent also Aquinas. See below.
26 Robert Kilwardby, De ortu scientiarum, ed. Albert G. Judy, O.P., (London-Toronto:
The British Academy & The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1976), 41-48:
See p. 43 on astrologia. Even on the issue of natural astrology joined to quantative
astronomy, Kilwardby is negative, stating: Certe nemo circa huiusmodi novit aliquid
dicere probando, sed coniecturas fallacs asserunt ex his quae contigerunt aliquando,
et non accidit regulariter sicut dicunt, et ideo astrologia iudicaria fatua est et infatualwa
eorum qui sibi vacant.
 184 JEREMIAH HACKETT
predicted on the basis of good mathematics in astronomy or is he
committed to a kind of deterministic predictive capacity wherein “sin­
gular events” in the future, hidden human motivation and actual free
human action can be specifically predicted? This is a difficult ques­
tion to answer especially given the polemical nature of Bacon’s remarks
and also his acknowledgment that he has to cloak his real intentions.
One thing is clear. Bacon, like Albertus Magnus, was engaged in
an effort to separate a true Science and Art of Nature from the
trickery of Magicians. And this meant deciding which books were
authentic books of science, and which were fraudulent works of magi­
cians.27 Since this is the case, one has to follow Bacon’s explicit inten­
tions as far as possible and attempt to understand his situation.
In a number of works, Bacon states his belief that magicians or
“false mathematicians” have abused the language of the astronomers,
meaning by this that they used charms, terminology, titles and claims
that gave the impression of legitimacy. Further, he charged that “those
terrible Magicians (Mathematici) put laudable titles to their works such
as Liber Ade, Liber Moysi, Liber Salomonis, and Libri Aristotelis et Hermetis.
In the Opus tertium, Bacon presents another list of these magical books,
which he states are fraudulent and are not true art or part of the
study of nature.28
In his defence of the works of true Astrologi, Bacon set out to prove
from the statements of the saints and the true astronomers that there
is no truth in these above-mentioned magical books. Further, he states
that if certain theologians and canon lawyers “who are ignorant of
both the power of philosophy and of the fallacies of magic,” would
read the statements of true astrologers and the books by the magi­
cians, they would easily see that Astronomia-Astrologia is no magic, but
is a true Science and Art of Mature. Thus, to understand the full impact
of Bacon’s polemic, the following works need to be read together:
27 See Paola Zambelli, The Speculum astronomiae and its Enigma, (Dordrecht/Boston/
London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992) [Boston Studies in the Philosophy of
Science, Vol. 135]; See also David Pingree, “The Diffusion of Arabic Magical Texts
in Western Europe,” in La difjuswne delle scienza islamiche nel medio evo europeo, (Roma:
Accademia Nazionale di Lincei, 1987), 57-102. The latter is the most careful study
on this topic to-date.
28 Opus tertium, ed. Litde, 48: Et hie omnes libri magici debent considerari et
diffamari; ut Liber de morete animae, et liber Fantasmatum, et liber De officiis et potestatibus
spiritum et Libri sigillis salamonis, et libri De arte notoria, et omnes hujusmodi quo demones
invocant, vel per fraudes et vanitates procedunt, non per vias Mature et Artis. See David
Pingree, art. cit.
ROGER BACON ON ASTRONOMY-ASTROLOGY 185
Opus maius, Secretum secretorum, Communia mathematica, Communia naturalium
and occasional references to the topic in Opus minus and Opus tertium.
Bacon admits that the criticism of Astrologia by the theologians
involves more than just the censure about characters, sacrifices and in­
cantations. The really important point is the accusation that Astronomia-
Astrologia involves “infallible" claims about singular future events and
the prediction with necessity of the future.
In Opus maius, part four, he cites the authoritative statements from
those “true” Mathematicians, namely, Aristotle, Avicenna, Ptolemy,
Haly (Pseudo-Hali), and Abu M acshar concerning the kinds of judg­
ment one can make about the future and about human free will. He
opens with a remark ostensibly from Ptolemy to the effect that the
astrological judgments are not infallible but are “between the neces­
sary and the impossible,”29* that is, they are judgments concerning
events which are midway between absolutely necessary events and
absolutely impossible ones, in other words, contingent possible events.
The burden of his remarks from these authoritative Astronomi is to
show that Astrologi do not make infallible judgments about particular
future events. In Bacon’s view, the astrologer can make a general
judgment about individual things about to take place, but not a spe­
cific one. And in most cases, he cannot give a definite judgment but
must often rely on conjecture. Thus, it does not reach the epistemo­
logical level of a science. Now, we must notice that Bacon is arguing
from Authority, that is, the authority of those teachers on the Heavens
who had been accepted by English natural philosophers for about
one hundred years. Evidently, we have here a conflict of two authority-
sources, scientific and religious. Bacon in both the Opus maius and
the Communia mathematica believes that the astronomers-astrologers are not
guilty as charged. Yet, Bacon does hold that the astrologer can say
something veraciter et laudabiliter about the influence of the heavenly
bodies on natural events and on human characteristics. He simply
29 Pseudo-Ptolemy, Centibquium and Commentary by (Pseudo Hali = Abu J a cfar
Ahmad ibn Yusuf ibn Ibrahim). O n this work and its commentator, see Richard
Lemay, “Origin and Success of the Kitab Tham ara of Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Yusuf
ibn Ibrahim from the tenth to the seventeenth century in the world of Islam and
the Latin West,” in Proceedings of The First International Symposium For The History O f
Arabic Science, April 5—12, 1976, Vol. II, ed. Ahmad Y. Al-Hassan, Ghada K am i,
Nizar Namnum, (Aleppo: University of Aleppo, Institute for the History of Arabic
Science), 29-45. This work has not yet been critically edited. Professor Lemay informs
me that his edition is proceeding. For the Latin text of the lam Scripsi version, see
Cambridge, MS Ii, III. 3., Verbum primum.
 186 JEREMIAH HAGKETT
denies that knowledge of this influence can be infallible or that the
heavens impose an absolute necessity on human free will.
What Bacon seems to have in mind is seen from his explanation
of this matter in the introduction to the Secretum secretorum, where he
sets out his distinction between a false and a true mathematics in the
following manner:
Those mathematicians who are false state that all things happen by
necessity and through Fate, and not only in natural things but in volun­
tary matters. Whence they argue that an infant bom in one constella­
tion or another will of necessity be of such or such a kind and through
this they presume to judge concerning all things, future, present, and
past, certitudinaliter. . . .
But true mathematicians do not presume these three positions, because
they do not judge that anything that was, is or will be, happens by
necessity in these contingent and voluntary matters on earth; nor do
they pass their judgments about all things, but only about some things.
Nor do they teach with absolute certainty one part of a contradiction,
such that this infant will be good or bad, but that this infant will be
good or a bishop, if God wills it. For always in their judgments, they
add: “If God wills it [Si Deus voluerit]”. Whence, when they foresee
the possibility of anything contingent about to happen in natural or
voluntary events, they do not say that it will happen by necessity, but
that it may happen, and that it will happen in so far as it is according
to the power of its causes, and that it will happen in virtue of these
causes unless God changes the Ordained Law of Nature and of the WillN
The kinds of astrological judgment that Bacon has in mind as valid
and laudable would seem to be the following: the recognition that
people are affected by their temperaments, and that character is
affected by climate. He does, however, go one step further, and argues
that an astrologer can make “general judgments” about whole com­
munities on the basis of “manners and customs,” which are affected
by temperament and climate. But here, one only has conjecture and
not the infallible necessity of science. This positive approbation of a
kind of astrology in Bacon has important consequences for his under­
standing of a scientia experimentalis. He makes the third prerogative of
his scientia experimentalis the way to a special knowledge of the past,
present and future “in a more certain manner than the ordinary
astronomy (astrology).”31
In the introduction to the Secretum secretorum, he defends the valid-
30 Secretum secretorum, ed. Steele, 3-4: Mathematici igitur qui sunt falsi___
31 Opus tertium, ed. Brewer, 45: De ista scientia (sc. exp.), multa tango in parte
ROGER BACON ON ASTRONOMY-ASTROLOGY 187
ity of an experimental science but he also condemns geomancy,
aeromancy, hydromancy and pyromancy as forms of that kind of
magic found in books. But in his view, other studies, using the same
names but not having the same intention or meaning, are parts of
philosophy and experimental science. Here, indeed, one can see why
some theologians for good reasons might have objections. They could
accuse him of bringing in the practice of geomancy, aeromancy,
hydromancy and pyromancy by the back door. It is one thing to
claim that the heavens indirectly affect the will and the mind, and
on this even Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas would be in
agreement.32 But it is another matter to retain the above subjects
and claim that astrology and its applications here are legitimate. But,
in the end, this is not the real issue. The critical issue is the one of
who sets the limits of what is legitimate: the theologians and the
canon lawyers who know neither philosophy in its scientific aspects
and the books on magic, or one qualified in philosophy, science and
the books of magic. That is, the Experimentator. Scientia experimentalis,
then, for Bacon is a kind of practical wisdom which scientific schol­
ars should use to separate a true science and art of nature from the
fallacies of magicians. This is a work, he thinks, for the Astrologi them­
selves. And here, one can see why certain theologians would not agree
with him, since they would claim that theology has the task of ulti­
mately deciding what is true and false in knowledge. Theodore
Crowley was correct in pointing to this “border-dispute” as the one
which led to some friction between Bacon and Bonaventure.33*
sexta; sed ubique relucet eius potestas et in astronomia et in omnibus. See esp.,
Opus maius, part six, ed. Bridges, II, 213-4; Tractatus de experientia in communi, ed.
Hackett, 338.
32 Albertus Magnus, De fato; Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, see comments
below.
33 Theodore Crowley, Roger Bacon, 50—64; See Jeremiah Hackett, “Anstotle, Astrologia
and Controversy at the University of Paris, 1266-74,” in Jo h n Van Engen &
Edward D. English, eds. Learning Institutionalized: Teaching in the Medieval University,
(forthcoming) for a critical study of Bacon and Bonaventure on this topic.
 188 JEREMIAH HACKETT
5. Bacon’s Sources for a Scientia experimentalis in Opus maius
Part Four and Related Texts: Fraudulent Astrology or a
Way to a “New” Experimental Science?
I should begin here by stating that Bacon has been accused, even
recently, of teaching “certain suspected novelties.”34 Thus, it becomes
fundamental to identify Bacon’s actual sources for the scientia experi­
mentalis, and then to determine whether or not he makes adjustments
of a kind which could “save the appearances” in regard to scientific
prediction, forecasting of human mores, and determination of human
behavior.
The important authorities cited by Bacon are: Aristotle, Avicenna,
Ptolemy (= Pseudo-Ptolemy), Hali his commentator (= Abu J a cfar
Ahmad ibn Yusuf), Ptolemy, Massahalla, Abu Ma'shar.35 The first
thing that needs to be said is that with the exception of Abu Macshar,
all the others are used with qualification by Thomas Aquinas. And
all of them are used with approbation by both Albertus Magnus and
by Bacon. It is here that one sees a difference between the younger
and older generation of theologians. For Albertus as for Bacon, Abu
M acshar is the auctor in astronomiam.
Bacon then cites a series of texts from some of these authors. But
it is important to notice that he integrates all of them into the sci­
ence of Aristotle. He sees them a complementing the science of
Aristotle, particularly the Anstotle of the Meteorologica. The main works
used are: (i) Pseudo-Ptolemy, Centiloquium; (ii) Pseudo-Ptolemy (= Latin
translation of Arabic version of Geminus, Introduction to the Phenomena,
know in Latin both as De dispositione sphaerae and as the Introductorius
in almagesti,36 the Quadripartitum (Tetrabiblos) of Ptolemy, and Avicenna’s
Liber sufficientia?1 Whatever one may think of these works, they are
34 Thomas O Loughlin, “Astrology . ..,” believes that Bacon so re-reads the Patristic
sources that he was open to Augustinian criticism. But see below for qualification.
See ch. 1 above for Bacon’s condemnation in his O rder “for certain suspected
novelties,” which means astrology and alchemy.
35 Opus maius, part four, ed. Bridges, I, 242. Bacon does not discuss Abu M a'shar
in this context. But since his influence is ubiquituous in Bacon’s later works, we
might see this discussion as Bacon’s response to the critical comments of Aquinas in
the Summa contra gentiles. See Jeremiah Hackett, “Necessity, Fate and a Science of
Experience in Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon,” in Susan J.
Ridyard & Robert G. Benson, eds., Sewanee Mediaeval Studies 6 (1995), 113-23.
36 For MSS information on Medieval Latin versions of this work, see Jeremiah
Hackett, “Scientia experimentalis: From Robert Grosseteste. . .,” art. cit. 111-12.
37 Avicenna, Liber de philosophia prima sive Sciencia Divina, ed. S. Van Riet (Louvain-
Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1980), 522-30 [Avicenna Latinus].
ROGER BACON ON ASTRONOMY-ASTROLOGY 189
not books of Magic in the sense signalled by the important Medieval
Speculum astronomiae.38 My task now is to review the arguments which
Bacon makes on the basis of these works.
The first reference is to the Centiloquium.39 Bacon’s text reads:
“In general, therefore, in considering what is to be held by the phi­
losophers on this matter, [we should note that] Ptolemy (= Pseudo-
Ptolemy) makes the following statement at the beginning of the
Centiloquium: ‘The astronomer ought not speak about things specifi­
cally but in general as one who views things from a distance,’ and
he adds ‘the judgments that I give you are between the necessary
and the impossible.’”40 Bacon follows on this with material from the
commentary by Hali (= Ahmed ibn Yusuf) and more material from
the Centiloquium. The commentator states that “He made this state­
ment, because this science does not exist except by means of proof or
opinion since the subject to which the whole work of the stars per­
tains is convertible to one and to the other.”41
Bacon follows with comment from Geminus’s Almagestum parvum
{De dispositione sphaerae) and states: “The judgments of the astronomer
concerning matters here below are not discovered from a science of
art, whose limits are necessary [i.e. formal logic], but they are dis­
covered from those things which happen for the most part,” and
“Astronomers have made that statement not according to the way of
art nor according to a determined quality {ingenium determinatum), but
by means of a conjunction falling on the adjacent thing,” and “In a
third passage, he states that ‘it is clear that what they affirm is affirmed
in the most general manner and not in an artificial way and does not
involve necessity.’”42 This, according to Bacon is further supported by
Ptolemy in the Quadripartitum, who in the third chapter states that
error is always possible in this science.43 It follows then that Ptolemy,
the master in this filed, makes clear that the Astrologer “cannot give
full certitude in regard to his judgments, especially in particular
38 See Paola Zambelli above. The consensus of scholarship now is that Albertus
is the author of this work. And it is clear that it had long lasting influence for Latin
Christians in determining which books were books of Science and Art and which
were books of Magic. The books cited here by Bacon were not regarded as books
of magic by Albertus or Thomas Aquinas.
39 See above, Richard Lemay, art. cit.
40 Centiloquium, Verbum primum.
41 See Cambridge MS Univ. Lib. Ii. HI. 3, comment on Verbum primum: “.. . dixit
quia hec scientia non est nisi secundum probationem et opinionem.”
42 Opus maius, part four, ed. Bridges, II, 243-4.
43 Ibid., 243-4.
 190 JEREMIAH HACKETT
judgments. This is clear not only from these, but from his other
discourses, in which, although he hints at the possibility of judging
about many things with reasonable certitude, yet he unqualifiedly
states that such great difficulty is inherent in the art, that it is easily
apparent that he himself places the definite limit, that the astrono­
mer ought not to boast of sufficient certitude in particular judgments.”44
Bacon summarizes his interpretation of Ptolemy, Geminus and the
Author and Commentator on the Cenliloquium and concludes that “it
is not Ptolemy’s thought that the astrologer should give in particular
matters a fixed judgment and one that is sufficient for singular events,
but that this judgment should be a general one and a mean between
the necessary and the impossible, and that the astrologer cannot in all
cases give a determinate judgment.”45 In what follows, Bacon makes
explicit reference to Avicenna’s Metaphysics, book ten. This is a signifi­
cant reference as I will show below. It reads:
For this reason, Avicenna, who completed the works of Ptolemy, as he
himself states in the Introduction to the Libri sufficientiae, reveals in the
tenth book of the Metaphysicae that the astrologer is not able to verify
in all matters nor should he do so because of the instability of the
generable and corruptible matter, which does not in all things obey
the powers of the heavens, as Massahalla states, giving the example of
the Magnet, because it does not have power over iron unless it will be
adjusted in the required distance and under the conditions demanded
for attraction.46
In what follows, Bacon argues that the divine Will can changed the
ordained law of nature, and the astrologers always add “This will be so,
if God wills it.”47 Further, they testify that the rational soul can change
gready and impede the effects of the stars.48 Bacon comes to the
following conclusion:
It is clear then from these statements that the philosophers do not
posit an inevitability in all things in the happenings of nature by means
of the heavens, nor do they posit infallible judgment in singular events,
but (only) according to the possibility of this Science, particularly since the
also add that there is another science [in addition to Astronomy-Astrology]
44 Ibid., 245-6.
45 Ibid., 245.
46 Opus maius, part four, ed. cit., 245-6; Avicenna, liber de philosophia prima, ed. cit.,
525-6.
47 See Secretum secretorum, ed. Steele, 3-4.
48 Bacon like Albertus repeats the remark: Quod sapiens homo dominabitur astris.
ROGER BACON ON ASTRONOMY-ASTROLOGY 191
which is called experimental, and which still gives a more certain judgment than the
common form of Astronomy.
Therefore, after a careful consideration of these and such like state­
ments, it is obvious that true Mathematicians and Astronomers or Astrologers,
who are Philosophers do not assert a necessity and an infallible judgment in the
case of Future Contingents. And so whosoever attributes these erroneous
views to them are clearly to be proved guilty of the ignorance of phi­
losophy, and the dismissal of the truth of which they are ignorant. . . ,49
These are strong words and strong claims. And it is likely that they
are directed against the younger generations of theologians which
would include, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Richard Rufus, Giles
of Rome, Henry of Ghent and others. But Bacon does not stop there.
He immediately presents his own reading of the Patristic writers, Basil,
Ambrose, Augustine and Gregory with the intention of proving that
his opponents misread the Patristic authors. This is high polemic
and one can expect a few texts to be deconstructed in the process.
The crucial text here is the De doctrina Christiana which does of course
condemn the frauds of the astrologers. This, however, is not a simple
citation, but rather a combination of texts from the De doctrina Christiana
and other works by Augustine.50 Bacon has a difficult task here, espe­
cially since a rejection of necessarian Astrology motivated Augustine’s
departure from Manichaeism, and Augustine is very critical of the
forms of astrological magic.51 Further, there are echoes here of the
continuing influence of ancient Stoicism.52 But Augustine, while offering
this criticism does allow for a world in which natural and human
events are destined by God’s Will, and in which the stars and their
effects on earth are instruments of the divine will. The real issue is
whether Bacon adheres to Augustine’s distinction between a true
mathematics which gives reasonable conjectures about past, present
and future and a false kind which a divinatio, namely the second part
of magic.
In the light of the above comments by Bacon, it is clear that his
situation is quite different from that of Augustine. The latter was
49 Opus maius, part four, ed. Bridges, ed. cit., 246: Bacon coins the phrase scientia
experimentalis from a combination of these works, antonomastically.
50 Thomas O ’Loughlin, “Astrology. . 108, n. 60.
51 B. Bruning OSA, art. cite, Thomas O ’Loughlin, “The Libri philosophorum. . .,”
art. cit.
52 Bacon takes over many Stoic themes from Augustine and other Latin writers.
See Marcia Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, II, (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1985).
 192 JEREMIAH HAGKETT
involved in a life long polemic with the necessitarian astrologers of
his times including the Manichaeans. Bacon had inherited the riches
of Greek and Arabic Astronomy-Astrology. And if he is to be believed,
there was a strong animus on the part of some theologians against
this kind of learning on the grounds that it inevitably led to the bad
kind of necessitarianism. One notices Bonaventure, John Pecham and
Aquinas dealing explicitly with this problem. Bonaventure, in par­
ticular, links the condemnation of Astrologia with the items which
become central in the Parisian Condemnations of 1270 and 1277.
These include (i) the Eternity of the Word, (ii) the Unity of the Possible
Intellect, (iii) Fatalism or absolute necessity and denial of free will.53
It is easy to see how a scientist and philosopher like Bacon with
careful distinctions would become open to an accusation of magic.
Bacon knows that Cicero and Augustine attacked the abuse of
astrology, and adds that the above-mentioned philosophers or as­
tronomers likewise condemned the abuses of astrology.54
6. Bacon as a Follower of Robert Grosseteste: The Paradox
In recent papers, I have addressed the issue of Bacon’s relation to
Grosseteste and Bonaventure on the question of astrology. The issue
is complex. It is clear that Bacon argues for a greater role of astrol­
ogy in human affairs than does Bonaventure, but it is an argument
for astrology as a mathematical ars and not for a form of magic. He
also appears to go much farther than Grosseteste, who in his own
lifetime seems to have moved from an acceptance of astrology to an
outright condemnation based on Augustine concerning predictions
about human life. Grosseteste was willing to retain the uses of astrol­
ogy for such things as the prediction of weather phenomena.55 It is
clear then that Roger Bacon is departing from the main theological
line of influence from Grosseteste through Bonaventure.56 This means
that some major influence must have affected Bacon in this respect,
since we find Bacon in the 1260’s stoutly defending Abu Ma'shar,
who did represent a necessitarian doctrine of astrological influence.57
53 Bonaventure, Collations on the Six Days, trs. Jose de Vink (Vol. V, The Works of
Bonaventure, (Paterson, NJ, 1970), 96-7.
54 Opus maius, part four, ed. Bridges, I, 240; See B. Bruning OSA, art. cit.
55 Richard C. Dales, “Grosseteste on Astrology,” art. cit.
56 Jeremiah Hackett, “Aristotle, Astrologia. . art. cit.
57 See papers by Richard Lemay and David Pingree on Abu Ma'shar.
ROGER BACON ON ASTRONOMY-ASTROLOGY 193
Indeed, Bacon’s account above of scientia experimentalis did not cite
from Abu Ma'shar. Yet, it did not need to do so since an entire
rhetoric of the uses of experientia, experimentum and experimentalis runs
throughout the Introductorium maius in astronomiam. In brief, Abu
M a'shar’s doctrine of causation, necessitation and celestial influence,
further developed by Avicenna, and supplemented by Averroes, was
defended by Bacon in the Paris of the 1260’s. By adding the above
references to the Pseudo-Ptolemaic works, De disposition sphaerae and
the Centiloquium and its commentary, Bacon hoped to mitigate the
attack on Astronomia-astrologia by some major theologians. In this, we
must remember that these theologians, Grosseteste, Bonaventure and
Aquinas, state that there are two kinds of Astronomia: (a) Speculative
quantitative analysis of the movement of the heavenly bodies and
their natural effects on earth and (b) judicial astrology which predicts
human motivation and action. Grosseteste and Bonaventure simply
dismiss the “astrologia iudicaria,'>as “fatua est et infatuatwa eorum qui ibi
vacant.'''’ Thomas Aquinas is more comprehensive in his account. And
he has more in common with Roger Bacon than might appear at
first light. But our concern here is Roger Bacon and the evident
difference between him and his putative hero, Robert Grosseteste on
the issue of judicial astrology.
7. The Source for Bacon’s ARISTOTLE and ASTROLOGY:
Ps. Ovid: De vetula
From the beginning to end of Opus maius, Bacon links Aristotle with
Astrology.58 He does so because in the third book of the Pseudo-
Ovidian De vetula by Richard of Foumival, he found a synthesis of
Aristotle and Astrology placed in the service of a Christian Cosmol­
ogy. Here one is reminded of the Liber nimrod, which Bacon cites in
Opus maius, book two, and which he likewise used for apologetic pur­
poses.59 The modern editors of the De vetula, attributed to Richard of
Foumival, identify Bacon as the first commentator on this work. They
demonstrate that some of Bacon’s citations have to do with the positive
58 Opus maius, part one to seven.
59 For a summary of this debate and for evidence that Roger Bacon does have
this work in mind in Opus maius, part two, see Jeremiah Hackett, “Philosophy and
Theology in Roger Bacon’s Opus maius,” in R. James Long, ed., Philosophy and the
God of Abraham: Essays in Memory of James A. Weisheipl, O.P., (Toronto: PIMS, 1991,
55-70.
 194 JEREMIAH HACKETT
use made by Bacon of Abu M acshar’s mention of the birth of Christ,
and of the preparation in the stars of that event. In themselves, these
citations are not very long or numerous and they could serve simply
as evidence that Bacon was one of the earliest readers of this work.
However, a much more important kind of borrowing was made
by Bacon from the De Vetula, book three. It is my considered view
that Roger Bacon not only borrowed the positive acceptance of Abu
M a'shar’s account of the Virgin Birth, but that he took over from
this work a whole schema in which the Artes and Aristotle were inte­
grated into an astrological universe with Monotheistic foundation.
The author of the De vetula, as does Bacon, leads the pilgrim on a
journey through the Artes (that is, the humanities and the sciences) to
philosophy and theology. Aristotle is presented as Graecorum philosophorum
princeps et dominus verique perennis amicus.60 This is a Monotheistic Aristotle
with trinitarian leanings who is presented in the context of the effi­
cacy of Astrologia for theology. This is the kind of Aristotle, among
other kinds, which one finds in Bacon in the 1260’s.
Book III of De vetula does not just provide an account of an astro­
logical world which is totally dependent on the Introductorium maius in
astronomiam of Abu Ma'shar. Surprise, surprise, it also provides an
abbreviated and emended version of the cosmogony of light as one
finds it in the De luce of Robert Grosseteste.61 Here, one finds a physics
of light, an astrological cosmos, and a moral and religious cosmos in
one synthesis. The prophecy of the Virgin Birth as set out by Abu
M a'shar is inserted into a completed cosmogony which matches
perfectly that of Roger Bacon. This is especially the case since Bacon
in the Moralis philosophia, drawing on al-Farabi, but in astrological
terms on Abu Ma'shar, took over the idea of using astrology to jus­
tify religion. Now, such a move was not opposed by everyone in the
1260’s. Even Bonaventure and John Pecham were willing to allow
such a use.62*But it was John of Paris in the late 13th century among
other who took over Bacon’s proposals in his De probatione Jidei. And
even in the case of Grosseteste, allowing for the stark rejection of
judicial astrology in its abusive form, it is clear that he retains its
valid form for an understanding of human dispositions and for an
60 De vetula, ed. Klopsch, 276; See Hackett, “Aristode, Astrologia. . . .”
61 Ibid.., part III.
62 For Bonaventure, see Hackett, “Aristode, Astrobgia. . for Pecham, John
Pecham, Canticum pauperis (Quarrachi, 1949), 137.
ROGER BACON ON ASTRONOMY-ASTROLOGY 195
analysis of human health. And in the case of Thomas Aquinas, one
finds a very judicious account.
8. Bacon and Thomas Aquinas on astral determinism
In the Summa contra gentiles, III, chs. 72, 73, he introduces arguments
against the opinio stoicorum “for they said that all things come about by neces­
sity, according to an irrevocable order (chain) of causes, which the Greeks call
eimarmene.”62, Aquinas, like Albertus and Roger Bacon allows for an
indirect influence of the heavily bodies on natural events and on hu­
man actions. And like Albertus and Bacon, he rules out direct influ­
ence of the heavenly bodies on human intellect and will. In ch. 86,
he argues that not even corporeal effects on earth result Necessarily
{de necessitate) from the motions of the heavenly bodies. The motions
of the heavens are necessary; those on earth are mutable and contin­
gent. Material corporeal beings do not produce their effects de necessitate.
In ch. 86, Aquinas singles out the Introductorium maius in astronomiam
of Abu M a'shar for special criticism. Briefly, Abu Ma'shar defends a
kind-of causal necessity which, while it uses the word possible (in the
sense of contingent), empties the word of real meaning. He thinks
that the effects of the heavens must come about, and thus, still wishes
to say that possibility is not thereby removed from the lower bodies
since each effect is in potency until it comes about. Thus, before it
happens, it is called possible. But when it becomes actual, it passes
from possibility to actuality. And it necessarily must pass from pos­
sibility to actuality due to the control of the heavenly bodies under
the power of God.
Aquinas begins his response to this problem by stating: “But one
cannot defend this meaning of the word possible. Such an idea would
imply the principle of plenitude: every genuine possibility must at some
time become actualized. It leaves no room in nature or in human
life for unactualized possibilities. Thus, in ultimate terms, the realm
of possibility and necessity would coincide. In fact, not only does
Aquinas attack Abu M a'shar on this matter and re-define possible as
“the possible that is opposed to the necessary in the sense that the possible is
called that which can be and also not be. Now a thing is not called possible
63 See Vernon J. Bourke, St Thomas Aquinas: On the Truth of the Catholic Faith: Summa
contra gentiles, Book Three, part I, 246.
 196 JEREMIAH HACKETT
or contingent in this way . . . as the preceding answer [Abu M acshar]
takes it. . . . Moreover, we should note that, in order to prove that
the effects of the celestial bodies come about by necessity, Avicenna
uses an argument like this in his Metaphysics.”64 And this latter text
was precisely the prooftext from Avicenna that Bacon used above.
Further, in ch. 87, Aquinas directly attacks both Abu M a'shar and
Avicenna, and states the following: “However, we should note that
Avicenna maintains that the motions of the celestial bodies are also
the causes of our acts of choice, not simply as occasions, as we said
above, but directly. . . . On this point he seems to return to the theory
of Albumasar.”65
And yet, in chs. 84 and 85 of this same work, Aquinas, like Roger
Bacon, uses the Pseudo-Ptolemy, Centiloquium to argue to speak about
the influence of the heavenly bodies and about the role of Astrologia
and a kind of Scientia experimentalis. He states:
However, we should note that, though celestial bodies cannot be directly
the causes of our understanding, they may do something indirecdy to
it. For although the understanding is not a corporeal power, the opera­
tion o f understanding cannot be accomplished in us without the opera­
tion of corporeal powers: that is, the imagination, the power of memory,
and the cogitative power. . . . And as a result, if the operations of these
powers are blocked by some indisposition of the body, the operation
o f the intellect is impeded. . . . Now, the condition of the human
body does come under the influence of the celestial motions. In fact,
Augustine states in the City of God, v, that “it is not utterly absurd to
say that certain influences o f the Stars (my italics) are able to produce
differences in bodies only.” And Damascene says, in Book II, that
“different planets establish in us diverse temperaments, habits and dis­
positions.” So, the celestial bodies work indirectly on the good condi­
tion of understanding. Thus, just as physicians may judge the goodness
of an intellect from the condition of its body, as from a proximate
disposition, so may An Astronomer judge from celestial motions, as the
remote cause o f such dispositions. In this way, then, there is some
truth in what Ptolemy says in his Centiloquium: “When, at the time of
a man’s birth, Mercury is in condition, it gives inwardly to things the
goodness of understanding.”66
Not merely does Aquinas agree with Roger Bacon in this matter. In
fact, at the end of ch. 87, he uses the same proof-texts from the
64 Ibid., part, two, 26-7.
65 Ibid., 30-31.
66 Aquinas, Ibid., 17-18.
ROGER BACON ON ASTRONOMY-ASTROLOGY 197
Quadripartitum of Ptolemy and from the Pseudo-Ptolemaic Centiloquium
as did Bacon, to argue against an inevitability in the effects of the
heavens. And he ends with “These prognostications that I give you
are midway between the Necessary and the Possible.”
Thus, despite their different readings of Abu Ma'shar and Avicenna
(Bacon tries to interpret them benignly), they both agree that there
is a kind of Astronomia-Astrologia which is more than weather forecast­
ing, and which has to do with the prognostication of human dispo­
sitions and customs. We have come a long way from Grosseteste’s
bald statements in his Hexaemeron and Bonaventure’s repetition of the
same message.
9. Roger Bacon and the Condemnations of 1277
Since there is some evidence that sometime in late 1277, Roger Bacon
was condemned within the Franciscan Order on account of certain sus­
pected novelties, the issue naturally arises as to whether or not he was
a victim, like Thomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome, of the so-called
Augu$tinian theologians on the commission set up by the Bishop
of Paris, Stephen Tempier? This is not the place to present a full
account of this matter. Still, certain directions can be identified.
It is not just proposition 101 of the condemnation which finds an
echo in the Communia naturalium of Roger Bacon. Rather, all of the
articles 92-107, which have to do with fate and Astral Determinism,
have a direct relationship to the debate on Astrologia described above.
If we add to this the fact that in the prologue to the Condemnation,
the Bishop of Paris is concerned not with Aristotle but with Experimental
books and with books in Magic, one can see why the works of Roger
Bacon described above have to be regarded as central to the lead up
to the condemnation of 1270 and 1277. The accurate description of
this relationship is a matter for another paper.67
67 But for the present, see Jeremiah Hackett, “Scientia experimentalis: From Robert
Grosseteste . . .” and “Aristode, Astrologia. . .
 198 JEREMIAH HACKETT
Conclusion
I believe that I have now demonstrated the connection between
Astronomia-Astrologia and Roger Bacon’s Scientia experimentalis. I have
placed his concerns in their proper historical context. Further, I have
shown that Bacon’s instincts in regard to the retrieval of one of
the greatest works in ancient Hermeneutics, the De doctrina Christiana,
was correct: there was a legitimate application of Astronomy for an
understanding of human events, past, present and future. It was not
the second form of magic. It was, rather, an applied Astronomy,
which in time would develop into a science of experience, a scientia
experimentalis.
9. ROGER BACON ON GEOGRAPHY
AND CARTOGRAPHY
David Woodward with Herbert M. Howe
This chapter assesses the contribution of Roger Bacon to the geo­
graphical study of the earth. In particular, it seeks to show that, despite
the derivative nature of much of Bacon’s regional and ethnographical
description, there is evidence of modernity in his geographical
method—particularly in his strong allusions to maps and his insistence
on the importance of longitude and latitude in compiling them. I use
the term “modernity” here to refer to a paradigm shift that occurred
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, during which period maps
became everyday tools of scholars, administrators, and military com­
manders, and in which the concept of world coordinates—based largely
on the instructions given in Ptolemy’s Geography—came to dominate
how maps were made and how the geography of the world was
conceived in Early Modem Europe.
The “Geographia” in the Opus Maius
Bacon’s geography is found largely in some ninety pages (in Brewer’s
edition) in the Fourth Part of the Opus Maius dealing with the utility
of mathematics in theology. A geographical section is also found in
the Opus Tertium, three fragments of which were discovered and
published by J.S. Brewer, Pierre Duhem, and A.G. Little.1 In the
fragment edited by Little, which contains Duhem fragment and the
geographical and astrological material, Bacon states that he did not
include the astrological and arcane material in the Opus Maius, not
wanting to hold up the sending of the work to Pope Clement.2
1 J.S. Brewer, ed. Fr. Rogeri Bacon, Opera quaedam hactenus inedita, Vol. I containing
I-Optis Tertium, II-Opus Minus, Ill-Compendium Pfulosophiae, The Chronicles and Memorials
of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages (Rolls Series) 15. (London: Her
Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1859); A.G. Litde, ed. Part o f the Opus Tertium of Roger
Bacon including afragment now printedfor thefirst time, (Aberdeen: University Press, 1912).
2 Little, Opus Tertium xix.
 200 DAVID WOODWARD WITH HERBERT M. HOWE
All of the geographical points that Bacon makes in the Opus Tertium
are found in the Opus Maius. He summarizes the reasons for the
importance of geographical knowledge in spiritual affairs, and stresses
again the importance of putting this information in a map. But the
role of astrology is again given more weight in these matters.3
Although it constitutes a large proportion of Bacon’s work, the
geographical section has not received the attention of other subjects
in Bacon’s thought. A.G. Little’s edited volume on Bacon’s writing
did not contain a chapter on geography or cartography, and David
Eugene Smith, the author of the chapter on Bacon’s mathematics in
that work, claimed that it did not fall in his purview.4
One explanation for the lack of attention is that his geographical
work was regarded as wholly derivative. Thus Thorndike, who is not
known for his support of Bacon’s originality in any arena, believed
that the treatment of geography in the Opus Maius was “simply an
intelligent compilation of well-known past writers, including the
wretched work of Ethicus, supplemented from writings of the friars
who had recently visited the Tartars.”5
It is true that all of Bacon’s geographical description is based on
earlier sources and not on eyewitness observation, notwithstanding
his assurance that “Again and again, therefore, I sent messengers
overseas, to foreign parts, to gatherings of thoughtful men, so that I
might [as it were] see these natural phenomena with my own eyes
and put them to the test,”6 northwest and southern Europe are left
out of the Opus Maius because he regarded them as so well known.
^Ethicus Ister’s Cosmographia is indeed cited often. This tract, which
appears as a narrative of an “exploration” by ^Ethicus translated from
the Greek by a priest masquerading as Jerome, a favorite traditional
authority on geographical thinking, is one of the longest and liveliest
early Christian geographical documents. But, in addition, Bacon cites
many other classical and early patristic sources: Aristotle’s De Caelo
and Meteorologica, Sallust’s De bello Jurgurthino, Seneca’s Naturales quaes-
tiones, Pliny’s Naturalis historia, Ptolemy’s Almagest and its commentaries,
3 Litrie, Opus Tertium 14—16.
4 David Eugene Smith, “The Place of Roger Bacon in the History of Mathematics,”
In Roger Bacon: Essays, ed. A.G. Little, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914), 153-83.
5 Lynn Thorndike, A History o f Magic and Experimental Science During the First Thirteen
Centuries o f Our Era, Vol. 2. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1923), 2:645.
6 F.A. Gasquet, “An Unpublished Fragment of a Work by Roger Bacon,” English
Historical Review 12 (1897): 494—517, 502.
ROGER BACON ON GEOGRAPHY AND CARTOGRAPHY 201
Jerom e’s De situ et nominibus locorum Hebraicorum and several biblical
commentaries, Orosius’s Historiarum adversus paganos (De ormesta mundi),
Isidore’s Etymologiae and De natura rerum, the Bible and Apocrypha,
al-Farghani, Avicenna, and a host of other less frequently cited works
from the classical, early Christian, and Islamic worlds, not always
uncritically. Bacon is explicit about the need for careful collation and
interpretation of sources:
In assessing the consensus of learned opinion, we ought not to include
anything of which we are not sure; we should, moreover, only include
in our account what seems reasonably certain to the best-known
philosophers.7
Bacon’s closest claim to firsthand observation was in his use of
William of Rubruck’s travels to the Tartar Empire in the service of
Louis IX (1253-55): Bacon uses him as an example of the reliability
of the eyewitness accounts he has used:
For this reason, then, I shall generally go back to writers who have
personally travelled in the parts of this world [they describe]. Thus in
the regions to the northeast I shall chiefly refer to the friar I have
already mentioned, whom his Majesty King Louis of France sent to
the Tartars in A.D. 1253. He travelled through these northeastern lands
and those between us and them, and reported to that famous ruler the
facts I have mentioned. I have studied his book with great care and
discussed it with its author, as well as with many other explorers of the
lands in that direction.8
Bacon’s use of William of Rubruck was important because his travels
were ignored by his contemporaries, such as Vincent of Beauvais,
whose Speculum Historiale, one of the Dominican Friar’s massive trilogy
of natural science, philosophy, and history, relied on the narratives of
John de Plano Carpini and Simon of St Quentin for his account of
the regions east of the Black Sea. Through Bacon’s use of William,
for example, he was able to confirm that the Caspian Sea was not
an arm of the circular Oceanus surrounding the world, as it had been
previously described in texts and mappaemundi, but was instead a huge
inland sea.
7 John Henry Bridges, ed. The “Opus Majus” of Roger Bacon, (London: Williams
and Norgate, 1900), 295. References to the Latin text are to the Bridges edition.
All translations are by Herbert M. Howe. A new translation by Herbert M. Howe
of all the geographical sections in the Opus Maius is available from http://feature.
geography.wisc.edu/woodward/.
8 Opus Maius 1:305.
 202 DAVID WOODWARD WITH HERBERT M. HOWE
But it was, in part, Bacon’s use of William of Rubruck that also
set his work apart from the geography of his Dominican rival, Albertus
Magnus. In comparing the two, it is difficult, however, to agree with
Kimble that “With the exception of a reference to the Rubruck expe­
dition, his regional description of the world is essentially the same as
Albert’s.”9 Albert’s regional description in the De natura locorum con­
sists mostly of lists of places and natural features, and has much less
ethnographical material than Bacon’s Opus Maius. But both agree in
stressing the “nature” of places if one wishes to understand the world.
Albert is perhaps more theoretical in his treatment of this subject,
Roger more explicit about the theological and political ramifications
of this knowledge. As Kimble says: “They wrote as clerics for clerics,
to promote the welfare of the Church and Christianity, and their
sole motive in writing was to promote a sound and saving knowl­
edge of God.”9 The geographical studies of the thirteenth century,
relying heavily on classical and early patristic sources, were not revo­
lutionary, but there are indications of the incorporation of secular,
contemporary travels based on firsthand observation.10
The geographical themes that Bacon discusses are clearly related
to his general aim of employing a knowledge of the world in the serv­
ice of the Christian call to mission. The Franciscan order, founded in
1209, nurtured an intense curiosity about the natural world and the
interests of its friars frequently turned to cosmography and geography.11
Bacon justifies the use of mathematics (which in the sense used in
this section bears on mathematical geography) in three main ways.
First, it is important because it leads to an understanding of the infinite
heavens:
If we are true Christians, the Apostle tells us, our attention is fixed on
heavenly things: we hope to gain them, and we believe that in our
bodies we will dwell in the heavens and remain there forever. It follows
that no knowledge is as important to us as that of the heavens, and
that no merely human matter should be as eagerly longed for.12
9 George H.T. Kimble, Geography in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed., (New York: Russell
& Russell, 1968), 91.
10 Clarence J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western
Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century, (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1967), 262.
11 Armando Cortesao, History o f Portuguese Cartography, (Coimbra: Ju n ta de Inves­
tig a te s do Ultramar-Lisboa, 1969-71), 1:190.
12 Opus Maius 1:180.
203
ROGER BACON ON GEOGRAPHY AND CARTOGRAPHY
If, as Bacon believes, the heavens directly influence the earth, the
study of astronomy has direct bearing on the earth’s geography. If
the heavens are primarily made up of fire, as he says Augustine and
others believe, then should we look for heaven-on-earth where there
is fire (at the Equator?). If Paradise is to be found on the Equator,
where is Hell? All these questions require the Christian to under­
stand the elemental makeup of the earth, its size and shape, and its
geometrical relationship to the sun, stars, and planets.
Furthermore, since the Bible is full of astronomical problems, such
as the explanation of the length of the day when the sun stood still
(Joshua 10.13) or such phenomena as when the sun retreated ten
degrees (II Kings 20.12),
a theologian must, then, have a good knowledge of the phenomena in
the heavens, not just because treatises and commentaries are concerned
with such questions, but for the sake of the text itself.13
Second, the Christian theologian must understand mathematical geog­
raphy because the Bible is full of allusions to places and physical
geography. “If one does not understand the physical form of the
world/’ Bacon says, “history is apt to become a stale and tasteless
crust.”14 History and geography are thus the two inseparable con­
texts for human affairs, a theme that continued to be expressed in
the Renaissance, when history was described as a “dead carcass”
without geography, and when the two were described as “Castor
and Pollux” which, when joined together “crown our reading with
delight and profit.”15
Since the Scriptures are set in the geographical context of “re­
gions, cities, deserts, mountains, seas, and other sorts of terrain,” the
theologian first needs to locate these features on the earth with the
aid of mathematical knowledge. By this Bacon basically means we
need to know their longitude and latitude. Furthermore, in addition
to knowing the precise location of places, the reader of the Scrip­
tures needs to be able to visualize what they are like:
If, then, whoever wants to gain a vivid picture of the places and their
relations to each other— distance and location, longitude and latitude,
height and depth; who wants to understand their variations in heat
and aridity, cold and damp, color, taste, and smell, beauty, ugliness,
13 Opus Maius 1:183.
14 Opus Maius 1:183.
15 Peter Heylyn, Cosmographie in four books, (London: 1669).

204 DAVID WOODWARD WITH HERBERT M. HOWE
charm, fertility and barrenness— will find his climb to spiritual heights
sorely hampered, and can only dimly understand what he reads.16
He invokes the names of Jerome, Orosius, Isidore, Cassiodorus, and
Eusebius as examples of authors who have stressed the need for such
careful geographical knowledge. But this literal knowledge was only
a stepping stone to the allegorical meanings attached to sacred geog­
raphy. Bacon uses the example of the River Jordan. Certainly we
have to know where it is and how to visualize the regions on its
banks, but what we really need to know is what that geographical
place means in a spiritual sense. Although he paints a mental map for
us of the River Jordan flowing north to south, with the location of
Jericho, Mount Olivet, the Valley ofjosaphat, and Jerusalem, he is
quick to point out that these places are all associated with the pit-
falls and joys along the road of the Christian life; real roads in the
landscape are symbols of spiritual roads. The Jordan flows into the
Dead Sea, a symbol of the Inferno; Jericho and its plain symbolize
the flesh, the Mount of Olives “the loftiness of the spiritual life, because
of its own altitude, and the sweetness of devotion, as sweet as its
oil.” The Valley ofjosaphat signifies humbleness in the eyes of God,
and Jerusalem signifies “the holy soul which possesses peace of h eart. . .
after a man has put down the world under his feet and has perfect
lowliness, then he has entered Jerusalem (peace), in all three senses of
the word (peace in his heart, the peace of God, and the peace of the
Church militant).”17
What sets Bacon aside from his contemporaries and forebears,
however, is his insistence on the need for a systematic, mathematical
way of positioning places on the earth for the practical needs of gov­
ernment, both to understand history and to predict from where in
the world threats to Christianity are likely to come. But here too he
must lay the mathematical foundations:
And this is the first axiom of our study: every point on the earth is the
apex of a pyramid which transmits the power of the heavens. To make
simpler and more certain the line of the reasoning I am proposing, we
must turn our attention to the diversity of the regions of the earth;
how any region changes with the passage of time; and how different
things in the same region are subject to different influences at the same
16 Opus Maius 1:183.
17
17 Opus Maius 1:185-86.
ROGER BACON ON GEOGRAPHY AND CARTOGRAPHY 205
time. But we cannot understand all this without clear pictures of the
size and shape of the habitable earth and its divisions or climatic zones.18
Bacon assumes that the world is spherical, and asks us to imagine
three straight perpendicular axes drawn through its center, one the
axis of the earth passing through the poles, and two 90° apart in the
plane of the equator. These axes, following Aristotle, establish six
different reference points in the heavens. He then establishes two
great circles on the earth, the equator and the colure, whose planes
are perpendicular. The surface of the earth is now divided into four
quarters, two in the northern hemisphere and two in the southern,
and Bacon shows us a diagram to explain the “quarter part of the
heavens under which we live.” (Fig. 1)
Bacon then discusses how much of the world is habitable and how
much is covered by sea. Ptolemy, in the De dispositione sphaerae (Epitome
of the Almagest), he says, suggests that only one sixth is habitable.
Ptolemy’s world is thus confined to less than half of one hemisphere,
and, had Bacon had access to the Geography, which he did not, he
would have seen this graphically depicted in Ptolemy’s world map.
Bacon prefers to believe Aristotle, however, whom he quotes as sug­
gesting [de Caelo 2.14.15 298a] that more than a quarter of it is in­
habited, a statement confirmed by Averroes. Then comes the famous
passage that has been used (and misused) to link Bacon’s Opus Maius
with Columbus’s estimation of the width of the Western Ocean
between Spain and Cathay:
Aristotle, moreover, suggests that the sea between the west of Spain
and the eastern edge of India is of no great extent. In Naturales Quaesdones
[1, pr. 13], Seneca informs us that this sea can be crossed in a few
days if the wind is favorable. . . . This conclusion [that more than one
fourth of the earth is habitable] is also proved by the voice of one with
a very different point of view. Esdras tells us in his fourth book [the
apocryphal II Esdras 6.42] that six parts o f the earth are inhabited,
while the seventh is covered with water. Nobody should question the
authority of this passage by claiming that this book is apocryphal
and o f dubious authority; everyone knows that the saints of old used
this book constantly, to confirm the sacred truths, and even used its
pronouncements in the divine office. For these reasons, it must be
accepted as authoritative, whether Esdras wrote it or someone else. I
18 Opus Maius 1:288.
19 Opus Maius 1:289.
 206 DAVID WOODWARD WITH HERBERT M. HOWE
therefore insist that, though the habitable world known to Ptolemy and
his followers is squeezed into a quarter of the total, far more than a
quarter is, in fact, fit for habitation.20
Bacon mentions Aristotle’s curious argument for the small distance
between Spain and India: he says that, since there are elephants in
both regions, the regions must be similar and therefore close together.
Bacon feels he must defend Aristotle from the jeers of those who
would interpret Aristotle’s use of the term “Further Spain” as mean­
ing western Spain, where, as everyone knows, there are no elephants.
He points out that the term “Further Spain” at one time (before the
Straits of Gibraltar were formed) included not only what is now
Portugal, but the west coast of Africa in the region of the Atlas
Mountains, where “there are plenty of elephants.”21
If the earth is viewed from above the north pole, then the inhabit­
able part of the world extends far more than half the globe’s circum­
ference, although he admits that of course its actual size has not
been calculated in his age, “since more than half of the quarter in
which we live is still quite unknown, and its towns are not familiar
even to philosophers.”22
The relationship of this passage in Bacon to the Columbian voyages
has been a matter for debate. Most authors have assumed that there
was a strong connection between the two. The facts of the case seem
to be that Pierre d’Ailly (Cardinal Petrus Alliacus) quoted Bacon almost
verbatim on the subject in his Ymago Mundi without direct acknowl­
edgment. Although the sixteen treatises comprising the Ymago Mundi
were compiled in 1410-14 it was not published until ca. 1483 and
Columbus owned a copy, which he annotated with almost 900 notes,
but probably not before 1494.23 Columbus alluded to the passage in
d’Ailly in a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella which he wrote from
Hispaniola in 1498. Although Humboldt believed that this “had more
to do with the discovery of America than the Toscanelli letters,” it
is difficult to pinpoint such influence.24 For the would-be global navi­
gator of the 1470’s, the question of the width of the Western Ocean
was no doubt discussed with reference to several well-known assump­
20 Opus Maius 1:290-01.
21 Opus Maius 1:292.
22 Opus Maius 1:293.
23 Tony Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps, (London: British Library Publica­
tions, 1988).
24 Thorndike, Magic and Experimental Science, 1:645-66.
ROGER BACON ON GEOGRAPHY AND CARTOGRAPHY 207
tions, such as the Ptolemaic value for the size of the earth, his esti­
mate of the width of the inhabited world, Marco Polo’s report on
the width of Asia and the distance of Japan (Zipangu) from the Asian
mainland. Columbus was aware of these issues, with or without the
help of the Ymago mundi, whether in manuscript or print.
The discussion then moves naturally to what is in the southern
hemisphere, quoting Ptolemy’s De dispositione sphaerae, (a passage almost
identical appears in the De natura locorum of Albertus Magnus), in
support of his view:
Nature requires that there be two races of Ethiopians, one beneath
each tropic. From this some argue that habitation is to be found on
the other side of the equator, just as on this.25
He concludes that the proportion of habitable land south to 66° must
again be much greater than merely half of that hemisphere. Indeed,
he argues that there is a greater proportion of habitable land in the
quarter of the earth south of the inhabited quarter, because, he claims,
due to the eccentricity of the sun’s orbit, the sun comes much closer
to the earth in that quarter, there is more heat, and thus less water.
A similar conclusion can be drawn about the other quarter-earth
south [i.e. southwest] of the inhabited quarter. His reasoning ignored
the fact that the earth rotates, removing any effect of this eccentricity
in the earth’s distance from the sun throughout the year.
Since the poles are colder, and “cold magnifies dampness,” he
argues there is an abundance of water there, and that the water
moves north-south from pole to pole (presumably to the north in
winter and to the south in summer, in a kind of crude model of
ocean currents). He provides a curious diagram, usually reproduced
as a geometricized line drawing, to illustrate the shape of the ocean
between “the west of Spain to the east of India” and the short dis­
tance between them.26 (Fig. 2)
Bacon then goes on to explain how the inhabited world can be
divided into seven climata, as Ptolemy and al-Farghani have done.
The climata are latitudinal belts around the earth whose boundaries
25 Opus Maius 1:291. The De Dispositione Sphaerae is the Almagesti minoris libri VI, or
Almagestum parvum, an introduction to the Almagest—based on Geminus’s Introduction to
the Phenomena which had been translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the
twelfth century. The passage on the two races of Ethiopians is found in Paris,
Bibliotheque Nationale MS Lat. 16198, 174v.
26 Opus Maius 1:294.

208 DAVID WOODWARD WITH HERBERT M. HOWE
are defined by the length of the longest day at that latitude. He
spends a great deal of time explaining how the relationship of the
earth to the angle of the sun causes differences among the complexions
of the world’s peoples and makes some places uninhabitable. Later
in the Opus Maius, Bacon discusses how it has been observed that—
even in the zones of the climata, there are conditions where no shadow
is cast, called askia. In some places, [along the Tropic of Cancer] he
explains, when the sun passes directly overhead at noon at the sum­
mer solstice, no shadows are cast in any direction. Those who live
between the Tropic of Cancer and the equator experience shadows
more often to the north than to the south, because the sun is to
their south longer than it is to the north. Those who live on the
equator have the sun to the north and south for an equal time. Then
comes a puzzle: from Pliny, Bacon says, we learn that people live
south of the Tropic of Capricorn who experience only southern shad­
ows all year round: a “part of India called Pathalis is said to have a
busy port,” and an island called Taprobane. Some men from this
place came to Rome in the reign of Claudius, and were apparently
astonished to find that their shadows fell to the north. Taprobane is
identified with usually Ceylon (Sri Lanka) is of course of which are
far north of the Tropic of Capricorn, so it is unclear either where
these men came from or whether their account of the sun appearing
always to the north in their homeland was correct.
In his description of how the various latitudinal zones of the inhab­
ited world can be described, Bacon makes what can be regarded as
his most original geographical contribution, the allusion to a systematic
map of the inhabited world, which is therefore quoted here in full:
Since these climata and their famous cities cannot well be described by
words alone, a map must be used to make them clear to our senses.
I shall, therefore, first present a map o f our quadrant, and on it I shall
label the important cities, each in its own place, with the distance from
the equator— what we call the latitude— of the city or region. I shall
also label them according to their distance from the east or west, what
we call the place’s longitude. In my assigning o f climata, and likewise of
latitude and longitude, I shall make use of the prestige and experience
of the wisest scholars. To locate each city in its proper place [on this
map] by its longitude and latitude, which have already been discov­
ered by my authorities, I shall use a method by which their positions
may be shown by their distances north and south, east and west. The
device is this: parallel to the equator (already drawn on a plane surface),
a straight line [i.e. a parallel of latitude] is drawn. This intersects another
ROGER BACON ON GEOGRAPHY AND CARTOGRAPHY 209
straight line [a meridian], from the point corresponding to the number
of degrees of latitude of the place. This point is also marked on the
colure (the quarter of the great circle that passes from the equator to
the pole of the universe), and is, in fact, an arc of the colure. This
procedure is both easier and better [than anything now in use], and a
map drawn in this way is quite capable of representing to the senses
the location of any point in the world.27 (Fig. 3)
At great length, Bacon explains that measurements “east and west”
must be measured along the equator, not along the parallel. In modem
parlance, we would say that Venice is west of Rome, for example,
because the meridian of Venice is west of the meridian passing through
Rome. What he is explaining is a coordinate system based on paral­
lels and meridians:
If, now, we want to find the distance of a city [with which we are
concerned] from the west as I have defined it, let us draw [on our
map] a line whose length represents the distance of our city from the
western limit; this segment between the city and the western limit will
indicate the city’s longitude, measured from the west. Now let us draw
a line from Arm, a city half way from extreme east to extreme west,
extending to the North Pole [a sort of prime meridian]. From this
draw a latitudinal line to your city; this will show your city’s distance
from the “middle of the world” [from the meridian o f Arm].28
Bacon’s source for the coordinates of cities were the “Toledo” or
“Alphonsine” tables derived ultimately from the tables of al-Khwarazmi
and Zarkala and compiled at Toledo, under the patronage of Alfonso
X of Castille (1252-84), by Islamic and Jewish astronomers.29 The
Alphonsic computations, with all their defects, estimated the length
of the Mediterranean far more truly than Ptolemy.30 Bacon expresses
his frustration that more such data have not been gathered:
And since the distances of longitude and latitude from Toledo of other
cities can only be found collected in the Alphonsine tables, in this part
of my work I have generally followed them, although we sorely need
more accurate ones, since the latitudes and longitudes of the Latin­
speaking world and its cities have not yet been established. Indeed, they
27 Opus Maius 1:295-96.
28 Opus Maius 1:300.
29 John Kirtland Wright, The Geographical Lore of the Time of the Crusades: A Study in
the History of Medieval Science and Tradition in Western Europe, American Geographical
Society Research Series No. 15, ed. W.L.G. Joerg. (New York: American Geographical
Society, 1925), 102-04.
30 Opus Maius 1:298-99.
 210 DAVID WOODWARD WITH HERBERT M. HOWE
never will be, except under an apostolic or imperial decree, or the sup­
port of some great ruler willing to offer his backing to philosophers.31
We then get a glimpse of what the map might have looked like: it
was on parchment and the cities were marked in red:
For all these reasons, then, I am presenting such figures in the blank
part of this parchment [pellis, “sheepskin”, i.e. map], where cities are
shown by little red circles. To the rest of the parchment, a different
function may be assigned, that of describing in greater detail the places
of the world. This second sort of description I have added, because of
the great importance of the places concerned.32
The map is of course lost to posterity, but it must have been quite
large and complicated to bear all the information he suggests. It was
also quite different from such contemporary maps as the Hereford
Map (ca. 1290) which is based on the usual mappamundi model of the
tripartite earth, usually oriented to the east, and often centered on
Jerusalem.33 Bacon’s map is oriented to the north and centered on
Arin, and uses a completely different structural base that only came
into common use in the fifteenth century.
The position of places must be known and marked on a map,
Bacon says, but the character of these places must also be described
and understood for several practical reasons. He states a core axiom
of geography:
As Porphyry tells us, position in space is a prerequisite for the genera­
tion of things, and diversity of position means diversity of everything.34
The notion that a knowledge of place (locus) was necessary to under­
stand the diversity of the world’s peoples, (a theory known as geographi­
cal determinism that became discredited as a vast over-simplification
in the early twentieth century), is strongly present in the thought of
Albertus Magnus:
For here it has been proved that a place is an active principle of genera­
tion, as some think. The reason for this is that every thing that has been
located keeps itself located in its own place just as matter to form.35
31 Opus Mams 1:300.
32 Opus Maius 1:300.
33 Paul D.A. Harvey, Mappamundi: The Hereford World Map, (London: British
Library, 1996).
34 Opus Maius 1:301.
35 Sister Jean Paul Tilmann O.P., An Appraisal of the Geographical Works of Albertus
ROGER BACON ON GEOGRAPHY AND CARTOGRAPHY 211
Glacken regards Albertus Magnus’s De nalura locorum as “the most
important and the most elaborate discussion of geographical theory'
with relation to human culture since the Hippocratic Airs, Waters,
Places. . . Albert also perpetuated the old error of extrapolating to
entire peoples environmental influences that presumably caused mental
or physical differences among individuals. As it was with the ancients,
so it was with Albert: the environmental theory became a handy
explanation for racial differences—especially skin color and type of
hair—and for physiological and cultural differences.”36
Bacon’s is no blind oversimplified geographical determinism, how­
ever. As Glacken points out, Bacon
is aware of the cultural diversity in the various climata, among the
Scythians, Ethiopians, Picards, French, Normans, Flemings, and the
English, but the causes of these differences are in the heavens, not on
earth or in men. Observation, however, forces him to modify the gen­
eralization, because Bacon sees too the cultural influence of a great
city on its environs; a province surrounding a famous city assumes its
manners and customs because “the city serves as a refuge and a cen­
tral point for transacting the affairs of life.”37
Geographical knowledge, Bacon says, has been sadly lacking in the
philosophy of the Latins, and thus they have been unable to explain
phenomena fully out of geographical context. Furthermore, a knowl­
edge of the world’s geography is essential if we are to avoid the
pitfalls of extreme climates in missionary travel:
There have been times when men in the best of health have crippled
themselves—not to mention the concerns of all Christendom—by their
ignorance of the various climates [naturam locorum] of the world. They
have [tried to] traverse regions too hot for them in the summer, or too
cold in the winter.38
An ethnographical knowledge of the world’s peoples and religions is
also necessary to avoid diplomatic or doctrinal blunders:
Whether he is setting out to convert the heathen or to further some
other business of the Church, he must know the practices and behavior
of every region, so that he may be able to approach a fitting place to
Magnus and His Contributions to Geographical Thought, Michigan Geographical Publication
No. 4, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Department of Geography, 1971), 25.
36 Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, 270.
37 Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore, 285.
38 Opus Maius 1:301.
 212 DAVID WOODWARD WITH HERBERT M. HOWE
carry out his purpose, and will not fall among idolaters when he means
to approach pagans.. . . Men without number have failed to succeed in
the most important business of Christendom, simply because they did not
understand the immense differences between the regions of the world.39
Bacon specifies an example in knowing the location of the ten lost
tribes of Israel, which he links to the legend of the tribes walled in
by Alexander:
But since these peoples, still imprisoned in clearly-marked parts of the
world, are destined to emerge and to gain the Antichrist as their leader,
it is well for Christians— and especially the Roman Church— to con­
sider carefully the geography o f those places, so that they may be able
to understand the savagery of these tribes. In this way they will be
able to foresee the day of the Antichrist’s coming, as well as the place
whence he will appear (originem).40
Bacon then passes on to a geographical description, region by region,
following especially Pliny, but also Jerome, Orosius, Isidore, and secular
writers, as he fully acknowledges.
The regional description, which starts with a discussion of the
sources of the rivers of Paradise, then takes a broad sweep— not
entirely systematic or without repetition—to cover Asia, Africa, north­
ern Europe, and finishing with Southeast Europe. He dwells at great
length on the description of the Holy Land, because it is with it that
Scripture is most concerned. The tour then extends to the southern
coast of India, and doubles back to Ethiopia, Egypt, and the course
of the Nile and the theories (based on Anaxagoras and Aristode)
about its flooding, North Africa, Arabia, and the encampments of
the Children of Israel, Syria (in its multiple regions), the Tigris and
Euphrates, the Holy Land (once more), Mt. Taurus and the Caucasus,
the kingdoms of the Medes, Persians, and Parthians, India which
evidently includes Indo-China, back to Asia Minor, the Black Sea,
River Don, the swamps of Maeotis, the Danube, Poland, and east­
ern Hungary, Great Russia, the Steppe zone of the Tartars and the
origins of that people (based largely on William of Rubruck), and a
section on the Caspian Sea, fully asserting its inland character.
39 Opus Maius 1:302.
40 Opus Maius 1:303.
ROGER BACON ON GEOGRAPHY AND CARTOGRAPHY 213
Geography and Cartography in the Thirteenth Century
It can be claimed that there was a “geographical renaissance” in the
thirteenth century. It was not a dramatic or revolutionary change,
but there were a number of distinct manifestations of a new interest
in describing and representing the physical and cultural world. Many
of the materials for such an enterprise were now available, except
for the most obvious, Ptolemy’s Geography. The prime classical sources,
particularly Aristotle and his Arabic commentators and Ptolemy’s
Almagest, now existed in Latin translation. The universities of Oxford
and Paris were particularly strong centers of a cosmographical and
geographical culture that reached its climax in Europe in the thir­
teenth century. The Dominican and Franciscan orders founded in
that century, although primarily advancing the sacra doctrina, the sav­
ing knowledge of Scripture, stimulated the intellectual life of the
thirteenth century. The result was a profusion of treatises and great
encyclopedias, such as those by Vincent de Beauvais, Albertus Magnus,
Bartholomew Anglicus, Brunetto Latini, and Roger Bacon. The geo­
graphical passages in Dante drew on much of this material and helped
to popularize it.41
Moreover, as John K. Wright points out, many of the leaders of
this twelfth- and thirteenth-century interest in geography, from Adelard
of Bath, Alexander Neckam, Alfred of Sareshel, Daniel of Morley,
Robert Grosseteste, and Roger Bacon, were Englishmen.42
Sacrobosco (d. 1256), although bom in England and possibly edu­
cated at Oxford, was admitted as a member of the University of
Paris in 1221. He is best known for his work De sphaera, which prob­
ably appeared in the 1220’s or 1230’s, almost certainly predating the
De sphaera of Robert Grosseteste. The English geographical culture in
the thirteenth century is also revealed by the clustering of at least
four important thirteenth-century mappaemundi—the Vercelli (ca. 1200),
“Duchy of Cornwall,” (before 1220), Ebstorf (ca. 1235—40), and
Hereford (ca. 1290) maps—which either were made in England or
appear to have strong English connections. In addition, important
smaller examples include the Psalter map (ca. 1250), and several maps
41 Wright, Geographical Lore, 107.
42 Wright, Geographical Lore, 408-09, fn. 97.
214 DAVID WOODWARD WITH HERBERT M. HOWE

by Matthew Paris. Records describe Henry I ll’s decorations at Win­

1 D iagram from a late thirteen th -century m an u scrip t o f th e Opus M aius, show ing th e division o f th e E q u ato r an d th e m eridian
chester Casde as including a world map (1236).43
Another significant cartographic development in the thirteenth
century was the beginning of portolan charts—nautical charts of the
Mediterranean and Black Seas known for their accuracy. Bacon does
not refer to them, and they may have become familiar only after the
appearance of the Opus Maius. The earliest reliably documented

o f Arin. British Library, Royal MS 7 F VII, 43r. By perm ission o f th e British Library.
reference to these charts dates from 1270, and the oldest surviving
chart—the so-called Carte Pisane—are thought to date from about
the same time, but many attempts have been made to justify an
older beginning. For example, Nordenskiold believes that Ramon Lull
was the guiding spirit in these charting developments.44
Much evidence points towards an association between these early
charts of the Mediterranean and the books of sailing directions, or
portolani. An early example for the Mediterranean is the mid-thirteenth-
century Lo compasso da navigare (1232 X 1258). Motzo, its modem editor
and commentator, concluded that Lo compasso da navigare and the
prototype chart (not necessarily the Carte Pisane) were derived from
the same data, and proposed the mathematical school of Leonardo
Pisano (Fibonacci) or of his pupil Campano da Novara as a possible
origin.45
Also strongly associated with these charts— and one of many pos­
sible explanations for their origin—was the mariner’s compass. The
writings of the English monk Alexander Neckam provide confirma­
tion of its existence by the last two decades of the twelfth century of
a simplified lodestone, consisting of a magnetized needle pushed
through a floating piece of wood. One commentator, Jacques de Vitry,
bishop of Acre, even wrote in 1218 of its necessity for navigation.46
Bacon’s association with the compass is much more tenuous. It was
certainly well known in his time, but it is by no means clear that he

43 David Woodward, “Medieval Mappaemundi,” In History of Cartography: Cartog­

raphy in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, ed. J.B. Harley
and David Woodward, 1. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 286-370.
44 Adolf Eric Nordenskiold, Periplus. An Essay on the Early History of Charts and Sail­
ing Directions, (Stockholm: 1897).
45 Tony Campbell, “Portolan Charts from the Late Thirteenth Century to 1500,”
In History of Cartography: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the
Mediterranean, ed. J.B. Harley and David Woodward, 1. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1987), 371-463, 382.
46 For an excellent account of the compass in medieval Europe, see Julian A.
Smith, “Precursors to Peregrinus: The Early History of Magnetism and the Mariner’s
Compass in Europe,” Journal of Medieval History 18 (1992): 21-74.
!

O u
be 2

O <J

Pi

00 Js
 ROGER BACON ON GEOGRAPHY AND CARTOGRAPHY 215

understood its workings, believing that it could be made to turn to

any other point of the compass if only it has been properly magnet­
ized.47 The apocryphal story of Brunetto Latini showing Bacon “the
secret of the magnetic needle” which Bacon was anxious not to divulge
for fear of being accused of practicing magic has been traced to a
magazine article of 1802.48

The Mathematical Method

It has often been pointed out that, although Bacon stridently called
for mathematical methods in the study of natural science and theology,
his practical grasp of mathematics was not at all strong, especially
when compared to roughly contemporary “pure” mathematicians such
as Leonardo Fibonacci. Thorndike summarized it as “expounding
his physical and astronomical theories by means of simple geometrical
diagrams,” concluding that Bacon’s glowing reputation in the appli­
cation of mathematical method in the sciences was unfounded.49
Nevertheless, Bacon’s description of a system of plotting places with
latitude and longitude was innovative because he understood that
the idea of coordinate systems could be transferred from a celestial
to a terrestrial context and construed that this might be useful in the
making of maps. There are no similar allusions to such a system
earlier in medieval Europe, and between Bacon’s time in the mid­
thirteenth century and the introduction of Ptolemy’s Geography in the
early fifteenth century we hear of no other such application in the
Latin west.50*
It should be pointed out that Bacon’s system was not a map pro­
jection, as has often been stated. A careful study shows that Bacon
nowhere mentions that a graticule of longitude and latitude lines was
added to his map. We can certainly rule out the idea that Bacon
developed equations for a projection of the inhabited world or even
that he had much theoretical knowledge of how to systematically
transform a spherical surface to a flat one. Nevertheless, his obvious
understanding of the use of meridian great circles and parallels with
4. Detail o f the seventh figure” from a m anuscript o f Pierre d ’Ailly, Imago M undi
showing his m ap o f the inhabited world. Brussels, B ibliotheque Royale, MS. 21198,
fol. 4. Copyright B ibliotheque royale A lbert Ier. 47 Brewer, Opus Minus, 383-84.
48 Thorndike, Magic and Experimental Science, 621.
49 Thorndike, Magic and Experimental Science, 645.
50 David Woodward, “Roger Bacon’s Terrestrial Coordinate System,” Annals of
the Association of American Geographers 80 (1 1990): 109-22.
 216 DAVID WOODWARD WITH HERBERT M. HOWE
reference to graduated axes indicates that a projection was latent in
his procedure. We may therefore conclude that Roger Bacon’s method
involved at least some understanding of how to represent the spheri­
cal earth on a flat plane (to “appeal to the sense”) even if he had
neither fitted an equation to the transformation nor drawn a grati­
cule of parallels and meridians on his map.
The Islamic geographers had already been exposed to Ptolemy’s
idea of terrestrial coordinates. The date usually given for its arrival
is during the reign of Caliph al-Ma’mun (ninth century), and the
translation is attributed originally to al-Kindi and later to ibn Qurrah.
It is likely that the full translation of the Geography into Arabic did
not come until much later in the ninth century, certainly after the
death of al-Ma’mun.
Central in Ptolemy’s ideas was the principle that maps should be
plotted from tables of latitude and longitude values. For Islamic science,
the tables seem to be of much more importance in this early period
than the maps themselves. Lists of both latitude and longitude, fol­
lowing Ptolemy at least in method if not in detail, are exemplified by
the sets of tables— designed for astrological use—by al-Khwarazmi,
one of the scholars of al-Ma’mun’s court, and al-Battanl and Suhrab,
both of the tenth century.
The application of these tables to geographical mapmaking was
quite another matter. We have only one account of how this could
be done from the work of Suhrab in the tenth century. Suhrab gives
an introduction to his version of al-Khwarazmi’s tables in which he
explains in detail how to draw a map of the world. His explanation
is illuminating. First he draws a rectangle, “the larger the better,”
and then he divides the edges into degrees and marks the equator
and then the horizontal lines dividing the climates. To pinpoint his
features on the map he uses a thread stretched due north and south
at the longitude required, with another thread stretched due east
and west at the required latitude. The feature could then be placed
at the intersection of the threads.51
The primary purpose of these calculations was to fix the locations
of birthplaces for astrological use. John K. Wright stated, “the whole
51 Gerald R. Tibbetts, “The Beginnings of a Cartographic Tradition,” In The His­
tory of Cartography: Cartography in the Islamic and South Asian Societies, ed. J.B. Harley and
David Woodward, 2 Book 1. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 90-107.
217
ROGER BACON ON GEOGRAPHY AND CARTOGRAPHY
question of latitudes and longitudes was astronomical and astrologi­
cal, not geographical.”52 Wright went as far as to say that the influ­
ence of such coordinates on the geographical cartography of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries “was absolutely nil.”53 Although Wright’s
statement may be true in the light of the general lack of immediate
acceptance of the Opus Maius, the very appearance of the description
of Bacon’s map as a tool for political expansion must suggest that
functions other than those associated with traditional astrology may
have been in Bacon’s mind. The exact knowledge of the position of
places in Bacon’s writing had both practical and spiritual functions,
and the Opus Maius is carefully laid out to distinguish between the two.
Effect o f Bacon’s Geographical Ideas
Like many other of Bacon’s writings, the advice on how to make a
systematic map went unheeded, presumably because no driving need
was present in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries for such a
precise way of positioning places on the globe. By the time that
European geography was ready for such precise cartography, Ptolemy’s
Geography had been translated, in the first decade of the fifteenth
century, from Byzantine Greek manuscripts into Latin. The center
of geographical attention was on this work, certainly not the Opus
Maius, as the full impact of Ptolemy’s theoretical ideas for terrestrial
mapping became apparent in the proliferation of manuscripts and
printed editions during the fifteenth century.
Clearly, however, Bacon was an influence on the Tmago mundi of
Pierre d’Ailly (1410-14), whose map may well have been based on
Bacon’s (Fig. 4). In addition to the passages on the short distance
between Spain and India, d’Ailly lifted almost word for word the
section describing Bacon’s artificium, his system of coordinates. Com­
pare the following short excerpts from a much larger almost identi­
cal pair of quotations:
[Bacon] Et hoc artificium consistit in concursu lineae rectae equidistantis
aequinoctiali signatae in piano; secundum formam lineae rectae ductae
52 John Kirtland Wright, “Notes on the Knowledge of Latitude and Longitude in
the Middle Ages,” Isis 5 (1923): 75-98, 83.
53 Wright, Geographical Lore, 246.
218 DAVID WOODWARD WITH HERBERT M. HOWE
a numero graduum latitudinis regionis signato in quarta coluri ducta
ab aequinoctiali ad polum mundi.54
and:
[D ’Ailly] hoc artificium consistit in concursu linie recte equidistatis
equinoxiali signate in piano secundum formam linee recte ducte a
numero graduum latitudinis regionis signato in quarta coluri usque ad
polum mundi.55
Furthermore, Bacon was admired by the sixteenth-century English
pioneers of the English geographical Renaissance, Richard Eden and
John Dee, whose prescient calls for a British Empire hark back to
Bacon’s plea to Clement IV for a universal system of knowledge to
support a worldwide missionary effort. It has also been claimed that
Dee’s teaching of the importance of applied mathematics and of an
experimental approach to science was strongly influenced by the Opus
Maius, of which he owned several of the seven books in manuscript,
including Book IV. Richard Eden invoked Bacon when he wrote:
“no man knoweth further . . . than is tryed and founde by experi­
ence.” Leonard Digges, amateur mathematician and author of the
influential book on surveying and measurement, the Tectonicon (1556),
owned a manuscript of Bacon’s book on optics.56
Part VI of the Opus Maius, dealing with experimental science, also
contains material relating to geography and cartography. In it, Bacon
calls for a adequate instrumentation:
Mathematics could perfectly well develop a spherical astrolabe, on which
would be engraved everything in the heavens that people might find
useful, placed on accurately measured parallels and meridians— those
of both the geographical circles and those of the heavens.57
He continues to discuss how mathematics will benefit the broader
aim of furthering the Church:
Thus mathematics considers everything still unknown with an eye to
the state and its citizens; it gives orders to other sciences as though
they were its housemaids, so that all the powers of investigation may
properly be attributed to mathematics alone. Thus the unbelieveable
benefits of these three sciences [presumably he means arithmetic, geom­
54 Opus Maius 1:296.
55 Cortesao, Portuguese Cartography, 1:197.
56 E.G.R. Taylor, Tudor Geography 1485-1583, (London: Methuen, 1930).
57 Opus Maius 2:202.
ROGER BACON ON GEOGRAPHY AND CARTOGRAPHY 219
etry, and astronomy] redound— in this world, at least to the benefit
of the Church of God, rather than to the enemies of the Faith, who,
indeed, can be more effectually destroyed by Wisdom and her works
than by the tools of war and soldiery.58
Visualization
Another element in Bacon’s geographical writing that is unusual for
the thirteenth century is his emphasis on the need for pictures and
maps in order to visualize the geography of landscapes and places.
We have already referred to the example of the Jordan valley. In
addition to his extensive allusions to his own map in the Opus Maius
and Opus Tertium, he mentions the maps of others:
Eusebius of Caesarea, as Jerome tells us in his book On Places, wrote in
his own hand about the land of Judaea and the parts inherited by
each tribe, and at the end added a map [picturam] of Jerusalem itself
and the temple in that city, with a short commentary.59
Some passages in the Opus Maius appear to have been written with
a map in mind. For example, he describes the shape of the north
coast of the Black Sea as like a Scythian bow.60
Other writers in the thirteenth century had mentioned maps. Thus
Jacques de Vitry, bishop of Acre, specifically mentioned that he found
a mappamundi to be a useful source of information. Fra Paolino Veneto,
an early fourteenth-century Minorite friar, seems to have taken up
Bacon’s plea for their value:
without [maps] I say it would be not so much difficult as impossible to
imagine or conceive in the mind the dispersal of the sons of Noah and
the four great kingdoms.. . . What is needed are maps with both pic­
tures and words, for without the one the other will not suffice. Pictures
without words do not show provinces and kingdoms clearly, and words
without the support of pictures do not enable the eye to comprehend
the boundaries of provinces.61
58 Opus Maius 2 221.
59 Opus Maius 1 184.
Opus Maius 1 366.
61 Juergen Schulz, ‘Jacopo de’ Barbari’s View of Venice: Map Making, City Views,
and Moralized Geography Before the Year 1500,” Art Bulletin 60 (1978): 425-74,
452.
 220 DAVID WOODWARD WITH HERBERT M. HOWE
Albertus Magnus also mentions a small map to be attached to his De
natura locorum, but apparently not as ambitious as Bacon’s, and com­
ments as if this was expected of the au courant scholar:
In order that I may not seem to be lacking in some way to those who
wish to read my writings, I will attach a little map of the world to this
work, granted it is not skillfully made, in which I first describe our
habitable world, presenting its seas, and mountains that have been
named, its rather famous rivers, and the boundaries and limits of our
inhabited world.62
Conclusions
Armando Cortesao, the eminent Portuguese historian of cartography
and exploration, regarded Bacon’s contributions to geography and
cartography as outstanding for his time. Citing his references to the
compass, the astrolabe, his estimate of the distance west to Asia, his
drawing of a world map “the first known to have been drawn on a
projection after the time of Ptolemy,” he concluded:
This is enough to show the importance of the English Franciscan friar’s
great work for the history of geography, cosmography, navigation and
cartography, among its other aspects o f exceptional significance for the
history o f science in general.63
In this chapter, we have seen that his references to the compass, the
spherical astrolabe, or the length of a degree of latitude were not
unique in the thirteenth century, nor did Bacon invent a “map projec­
tion.” His estimate of the distance west to Asia was also a gross
mistake, although maybe a fortunate one, like Columbus’s, for the
European discovery of America. His geographical regional compila­
tion was intelligent and extensive, but it was not particularly original.
Nevertheless, Bacon’s explicit call for a systematic way of mapping
the world with astronomical instruments and according to the lati­
tude and longitude principles of Ptolemy, well over a century before
those had otherwise been absorbed into the Christian west, was a
62 Tilmann, Albertus Magnus, 112. A simplified map rather evocative of those
mentioned in the Opus Maius appears in the autograph ms Codex Vindobonensis
273, fol. 15 lv, but it is so simple that it cannot be the one to which Albertus refers.
63 Cortesao, Portuguese Cartography, 1:196.
ROGER BACON ON GEOGRAPHY AND CARTOGRAPHY 221
major original achievement. It was this deceptively simple concept of
coordinates, with its ability to control the accuracy of positions over
its entire face, that was to become central to cartography, and the
primary characteristic that made it “modern.” Furthermore, despite
Bacon’s careful wording that all this mathematical knowledge should
always redound to the Glory of God, the obvious contributions of
geography and cartography to secular politics are frequently made
explicit. Bacon’s geographical ideas seem to represent the beginnings
of an emergence from the center/periphery frame of mind in car­
tography towards the more homogeneous and systematic structure
for geographic space, a gndded space that was to form the backdrop
for the European colonization of the globe. Despite the attacks on
the hagiographic leanings of Bacon’s biographers, E.G.R. Taylor’s
epithet describing him as the “Father of Modern Geography”64 still
holds a grain of truth.
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371-463. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Cortesao, Armando. History of Portuguese Cartography. [& lit] Coimbra: Junta
de Investigates do Ultramar-Lisboa, 1969-71.
Durand, Dana Bennett. The Vienna-Klostemeuburg Map Corpus of the Fifteenth
Century. A Study in the Transition from Medieval to Modem Science. [& lit] Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1952.
64 E.G.R. Taylor, “Compendium Cosmographiae: A Text-Book of Columbus,”
Scottish Geogaphical Magazine 47 (1931): 214—19, 214.
 222 DAVID WOODWARD WITH HERBERT M. HOWE
Glacken, Clarence J. Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western
Thoughtfrom Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century. [& lit] Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1967.
Harvey, Paul D.A. Medieval Maps. London: British Library, 1991.
------ . Mappamundi: The Hereford World Map. London: British Library, 1996.
Kimble, George H.T. Geography in the Middle Ages. 2 ed., New York: Russell &
Russell, 1968.
Little, A.G., ed. Part of the Opus Tertium of Roger Bacon including a fragment now
printed for the first time. Aberdeen: University Press, 1912.
------ . Roger Bacon: Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914.
Nordenskiold, Adolf Erik. Facsimile Atlas to the Early History of Cartography.
Stockholm: 1889.
Taylor, E.G.R. Tudor Geography 1485-1583. London: Methuen, 1930.
Thorndike, Lynn. A History of Magic and Experimental Science During the First
Thirteen Centuries of Our Era. [& lit] Vol. 2. New York: Columbia Univer­
sity Press, 1923.
Tibbetts, Gerald R. “The Beginnings of a Cartographic Tradition.” [& lit]
In The History of Cartography: Cartography in the Islamic and South Asian Soci­
eties, ed. J.B. Harley and David Woodward. 90-107. 2 Book 1. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Sister Jean Paul Tilmann, O.P. An Appraisal of the Geographical Works of Albertus
Magnus and His Contributions to Geographical Thought. [& lit] Michigan Geo­
graphical Publication No. 4, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Depart­
ment of Geography, 1971.
Woodward, David. “Medieval Mappaemundi.” [& lit] In History of Cartogra­
phy: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean,
ed. J.B. Harley and David Woodward. 286—370. 1. Chicago: University
o f Chicago Press, 1987.
---- “Roger Bacon’s Terrestrial Coordinate System.” Annals of the Associa­
tion of American Geographers 80 (1 1990): 109-22.
Wright, John Kirtland. The Geographical Lore of the Time of the Crusades: A Study
in the History of Medieval Science and Tradition in Western Europe. [& lit] American
Geographical Society Research Series No. 15, ed. W.L.G. Joerg. New
York: American Geographical Society, 1925.
10. RO GER BACON ON MUSIC
Nancy van Deusen
And this is a Wonderful Diversity in the Action of Nature
In the preface to his 1859 edition of Roger Bacon’s Opera tertium
et minus, and the Compendium philosophiae, J.S. Brewer wrote that the
Opus minus had attracted litde or no notice. This neglect was attribut­
able, perhaps, as he stated, “to an erroneous notion, which has long
prevailed, as to its nature and contents.” It would appear that in an
account of the work, a certain Dr. Jebb1 had both confused it with
other writings of Roger Bacon, and, in addition, had “formed an
imaginary notion of its contents.” This, it seems to me, is very often
the case; that is, that thirteenth-century writers have received what­
ever shadowy reputation they might possess as the result of an “imagi­
nary notion” of what they did and wrote. Not only is this the case
for Roger Bacon, as Brewer pointed out over one hundred years
ago, but it had been the case as well, until fairly recently, for the
theologian-natural philosopher, Robert Grosseteste, who both pre­
ceded and influenced Bacon.
To explore all of the theological and scientific interactions of these
two important thirteenth-century English academics, particularly with
respect to the substance and function of music within systematic intel­
lectual activity, would exceed the limits of a short paper. Rather, the
present study will address the issue of Augustine’s influence, which
the two writers shared, pointing, especially, to the influence of
Augustine’s treatise, De musica, specifically upon Bacon’s view of music
as a mathematical discipline. That music, as Bacon repeatedly states,
is essentially mathematical, presents an inherent problem to be rec­
onciled, since Augustine’s De musica for the most part, addresses, in
detail, the topic of accent, accentual pattern, and verse. Bacon’s rec­
onciliation of this apparent contradiction served as an introduction
1 Samuel Jebb, who died in 1772, published an edition of Bacon’s Opus maius in
1733, that omits Part VII of this work. See Fr. Roger Bacon. Opera quaedam hactenus
inedita, vol. I, ed. J.S. Brewer {Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, London, 1859
repr. Wiesbaden, 1965), ixff.
 224 NANCY VAN DEUSEN
to music’s function as a quadrivial art within a coherent system of
studies, leading to the two goals of understanding basic philosophical
principles, and theological effectiveness. The usefulness of learning
was ever on Bacon’s mind.
Roger Bacon and the theologian he admired, Robert Grosseteste,
were profoundly influenced by Augustine, in ways that differ from
their significant contemporaries, both in Paris and at Oxford.2 This
is not so much, as has been stated, an accommodation of the new
Aristotelian learning to what might be considered by some to be an
outdated Augustinian system, but, rather, it was the discovery that
the newly-available—and accepted—Latin Aristotle reinforced and
extended the very directions Augustine had considered important,
and that he emphasized throughout his productive life. This coales­
cence was due, at least partially, to the fact that both writers, Aristotle
and Augustine, shared a common philosophical background in count­
less subtle ways. The questions both addressed were related to the
same priorities, but from different standpoints, an affinity of priority
that both Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon recognized and ex­
plored. The realization that Augustine’s directionality and terminol­
ogy, as well as principal preoccupations, were indeed reinforced by
Aristotle’s arguments—as well as granted analytical tools—informed
the directions Grosseteste and Bacon followed.3
2 The entries for Roger Bacon in the Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy
(ed. Nonnan Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg, with Eleonore Stump
[Cambridge, London, 1982]), give evidence for this. See especially p. 461. Robert
Grosseteste provides early examples of the effort to accommodate Aristode within a
predominandy Augustinian scheme.
3 As has been stated, these directions separated both Grosseteste and Bacon from
some of their contemporaries, resulting in what Richard Southern has termed Robert
Grosseteste’s insularity, a primary thesis in Robert Grosseteste: The Growth of an English
Mind in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1986). It is of interest to note that both authors,
Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon, actually quote Augustine a great deal, an
obvious indication of Augustine’s influence. Further, Augustine’s influence on
Grosseteste is seen by the fact that he followed Augustine’s example in writing rela­
tively short, succinct, discipline-related treatises during the earlier years of his writ­
ing activity. Later, with respect to larger, more comprehensive theological works,
both authors, Augustine and Grosseteste, rely upon the reader to connect analogies
from the earlier works to the principles discussed in the later works (i.e. law, place
and origin, figure, demonstration). For a detailed discussion of Grosseteste’s modus
operandi, see van Deusen, Music and Theology at the Early University: The Case of Robert
Grosseteste and Anonymous IV (Leiden, London, 1995). Bacon, on the other hand, pre­
sents circumscribed sections of discussion concerning, for example, music as a cogent
mathematical discipline, within the body of his treatises. Music is both intermittently
(with allusions to Augustine’s De musica), and extensively discussed as a mathematical
ROGER BACON ON MUSIC 225
Grosseteste and Bacon were convinced that basic principles, empha­
sized by Augustine and Aristotle, could be made to harmonize and
complement one another. An indication that Bacon thought this was
so can be found in Bacon’s writings on the subject of music as a
mathematical art and its function with respect to the other arts.
Certainly Bacon had read not only Augustine’s great theological works,
such as De doctrina Christiana, De Trinitate, De civitate Dei, and De Genesi
ad litteram, but he had also assimilated Augustine’s shorter works on
the liberal arts, written during the earliest part of Augustine’s career,
namely De ordine, and De musica. Influenced, as well, by De ordine,
Grosseteste also, evidently during the earlier years of his own writing
projects, wrote a treatise on the interconnections between the liberal
arts.4*As is the case for Grosseteste, it is, in some respects, crucial to
his entire perspective on what could be regarded as the natural,
discipline, “expounding theological truths through the potency of these sciences”
(Opus maius, 2 vols., Engl, transl. Robert Belle Burke [Philadelphia, 1928, repr. New
York, 1962], I, 197), under the topic, “the praise of music.” Bacon begins: “More­
over, although the praise of music is now manifest in common with arithmetic,
because both take into consideration the relations that exist in numbers, yet num­
bers, as they exist in sounds, Augustine greatly praises. .. ‘What importance num­
bers have in all motions of things is more easily considered in the case of what is
uttered by the voice, and this consideration by certain graded roads presses on to
the supernal paths of truth, in which wisdom joyfully discloses herself” ’ (Engl, transl.,
Opus maius, I, 198fL). Bacon, in his Opus maius, also discusses music as necessary to
theology (Engl, trans., I, 259f.). In his Opus tertium, Bacon complements and extends
his presentation, within the Opus maius, of the place, function, and usefulness of
music. Music is also specifically treated, especially with the focus of discrete partes,
as comparable to both litterae/fgurae and numbers, within the continuity of move­
ment, thus relating the discretion of number to the movement of gesture, in Bacon’s
Communia mathematica (ed. Robert Steele, in Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, Fasc.
XVI [London, 1940], 51-63). Although Bacon has been criticized for repeating
himself, and reincorporating what he had said before into his other works (as, for
example by A.G. Little in his introduction to the appendix following H. Rashdall’s
edition of the Compendium studii theologiae [Aberdeen, 1911 repr. 1966, 71]), Bacon’s
presentation of music in these three treatises exemplifies medieval compositional prac­
tice in general, that is, the placing together of pieces of verbal-intellectual material
in order to compose a treatise. These pieces, or centones, could include the composer’s
own material as well as that of others, such as Augustine. One would identify this
process— “an aggregate coming together”— as compilation, not composition, and
further, would regard it as negatively derivative today. See also van Deusen, Theology
and Music, “A Theory of Composition and its Influence,” 127-145.
4 Grosseteste, De artibus liberalibus, ed. L. Baur, Die philosophischen Werke Robert
Grosseteste, Bischofs von Lincoln (Muenster i. W., 1912); Die Philosophie des Robert Grosseteste
(Muenster i. W., 1917), in which music is set forth as a ministry discipline. See van
Deusen, Theology and Music at the Early University, especially introduction, ix—xvi. This
may have been written during a period of Grosseteste’s study of the liberal arts at
the newly-organized University of Paris.
 226 NANCY VAN DEUSEN
mathematical sciences, to observe what Bacon has to say on the subject
of music. Bacon’s writing on this subject gives a particular insight
into Augustine’s treatise De musica, as well as into sources that may
have influenced Augustine, particularly with respect to both the import­
ance and choice of accentual schemes, as well as the examples of
them used in that treatise. Bacon’s discussion of music also delineates
the function to be carried out by the mathematical sciences, both
separately and altogether, with respect to the understanding of theol­
ogy, thus answering the important question concerning the specific
task of music within the early university curricular system.
Both Augustine and Bacon thought that music was important since
music was both useful and necessary, not only in understanding the
essential principles of other allied disciplines, but in understanding
what they considered to be ultimate realities, namely, God and the
human soul. This is seen in the chronology of writing projects fol­
lowed by Augustine, who, as far as we know, wrote his treatise on
music during a period when he was also engaged in writing De
immortalitate animae and De quantitate animae, two treatises on the soul
that can be viewed as framing De musica. That music was absolutely
necessary for the understanding of all of the arts is an underlying, as
well as overtly-expressed, point of view for Bacon. It is interesting, in
this regard, to observe how Bacon returns to music. Music can be
found as a discrete section within his large-scale discussion of math­
ematics in his encyclopedic treatment of the liberal arts in his Opus
maius.5 In the Opus maim, Bacon places music within a series of topics
including the unity of time, motion, application of mathematics to
sacred subjects, astronomy, the calendar, and number; a placement
and function that is addressed, as well as extended, in his Opm tertium.
Further, in his Communia mathematica, Bacon again treats music within
5 See Roger Bacon, Opus maius, Engl, transl. by Robert Belle Burke, who places
this treatise in the 1270’s. See also Opera hactenus inedita Fratris Rogeri Baconis, 16 fasc.,
ed. R. Steele (Oxford, 1905-1940); S.H. Thomson, “An unnoticed Treatise by Roger
Bacon on Time and Motion,” Isis, 27 (1937), 219-229; F. Delorme, E. Massa, Rogeri
Baconis Moralis Philosophia (Zuerich, 1953). It is of interest that Burke, in discussing
the contents of the Opus maius, mentions its contents as comprising astronomy, optics,
theology, chronology, astrology, and the correction of the calendar, with a treatise on
geography closing the work, without mentioning at all that music is also included—
indeed forms an important, if not indispensable, portion of this mathematical sec­
tion. The Opus tertium forms a complement to the Opus maius (ed. J.S. Brewer, London,
1859, repr. 1965). It should be noted that what Bacon had to say on the subject of
music was also contingent upon the nature of the treatise at hand. In other words,
his observations on music appear in an intellectual as well as generic context.
ROGER BACON ON MUSIC 227
a discrete section, focusing again upon a priority in Augustine’s De
musica. This present overview, rather than summarizing and bringing
to discussion all that Bacon had to say on the subject of music, forms
an introduction to Bacon’s view of music’s importance and function.6
For both Augustine and Bacon, the essence of grammar, for
example, was the variety and diversity of tones.7 This fact was evi­
dent to the senses, and also formed the basis of the study of gram­
mar, to be taken on authority. A study that must be completely
received from, and taken on, authority, writes Bacon, is puerile; that
is why both grammar and its parallel mathematical discipline, num­
ber, are studied by children during the introductory phases of their
education. Accordingly, grammar is appropriate to primary educa­
tion, since what is learned through the senses, that is, through sight
and sound, can be more easily perceived. Numbers, as well, belong
to the initial stages of education since they can be perceived as con­
taining certainty. Bacon writes, “Grammar furnishes children with
the facts relating to speech and its properties in prosody, meter, and
rhythm, nevertheless it does so in a puerile way by means of state­
ment and not through causes or reasons. For it is the function of
another science to give the reasons for these things, namely of that
science which must consider fully the nature of tones, and this alone
is music, of which there are numerous varieties and parts.”8 Rhythm
teaches connection and relationship, and is exemplified in song; in
fact, cantm and accent are identical. “Therefore,” writes Bacon, “gram­
mar depends causatively on music.”9*
The essential rationes of grammar and logic, namely those of par­
ticularity in terms of particular and diverse tones, as well as the
6 A more exhaustive treatment of both the sources and influences of Bacon’s
ideas on music, as well as music’s place within thirteenth-century science is in prepa­
ration by this author.
7 Cf. Augustine, De ordine and De musica in Augustini opera omnia, (ed. J.-P. Migne
[.Patrologiae cursus completus.. . series latinae, 221 vols., Paris, 1844-65], vol. 32). Both
music and grammar use as their materials, sound; music however differs from gram­
mar in that it uses a wider variety of tones, which appeal, by their diversity, to the
memory. See De musica, especially chapters I and II, (cols. 108Iff.).
8 Roger Bacon, Opus maius (Engl, transl., Burke, I, 118) under the heading, Mathematics.
9 The entire passage: For it is called “accent” since it is, as it were, song (accantus)
from accino, accinis. Hence these subjects pertain to music as Cassiodorus teaches in
music, and Censorinus in his book on Accent, and so too in those on other topics.
Authorities on music bear witness to this fact as well as do their books on that
science. And Alpharabius agrees with them in his book on the Division of the Sci­
ences. Therefore grammar depends causatively on music (Engl, transl., 118-119).
Censorinus’ third-century summarization of accentual patterns is no longer extant.
 228 NANCY VAN DEUSEN
principle of reasonable connection {copula) could be best exemplified
in the science of music. Therefore, Bacon wrote that the end of logic,
the discipline that is based upon, and exemplifies connection, depends
upon music as well.10 So far Augustine could have accused Roger
Bacon of plagiarism, had both lived in the twentieth century. But
Bacon goes on to draw in Aristotle and the second book of the Physica:
“But the end of everything is its noblest part in every matter and
imposes necessity on what is related to it, nor have those things any
utility of their own which are naturally formed for the end, except
when they are related to their end, as is clear in individual cases.
And therefore, the whole utility of logic is drawn from the relation
of all logical arguments to arguments of this kind, and therefore since
they depend on arguments of music, necessarily logic must depend
on the power of music (which is the power of connection coupled
with beauty). All these facts are in accordance with the opinion of
Alpharabius in his book on the Sciences, and they are likewise clearly
stated by Aristotle and Averroes, although these are not used by the
Latins.”11 Further, music exemplifies number, both in its particular­
ity, its physicality as substance, and in its capacity to be projected by
the use of figure. Due, partially, to this fact, Bacon writes, mathematics
is not beyond the intellectual grasp of anyone. “For the people at
large, and wholly illiterate, know how to draw figures and compute,
and sing, all of which are mathematical operations. Children begin
with facts that are better known by us and that must be acquired
first. But of this nature is mathematics, since children are first taught
to sing; and in the same way they can learn the method of making
figures and of counting, and it would be far easier and more necessary
for them to know about numbers before singing, because in the relations
o f numbers in music the whole theory o f numbers is set forth by example, just
as the authors on music teach, both in ecclesiastical music and in phi­
losophy. But the theory of numbers depends on figures, since numbers
relating to lines, surfaces, solids, squares, cubes, pentagons, hexagons,
and other figures are known from lines, figures, and angles. For it
has been found that children learn mathematical truths better and
more quickly, as is clear in singing, and we also know by experience
10 Opus maius p. 119, an extension of the passage given above.
11 Opus maius, Engl, transl., I, 119: cf. Physics, 199bl—30. The principle to which
Bacon alludes here, that of the tripartite model of incipit, middle processional phase,
with individual partes linked by necessity, and termination, is emphasized as well in
the Metaphysics.
ROGER BACON ON MUSIC 229
that children learn and acquire mathematical truths better than the
other parts of philosophy.”12
Music, then, made simple, as well as reasonably complex, prin­
ciples plain.13 Frequently Bacon, when actually using the concept planus,
brings up, as well, a musical allusion. Music as a topic appears repeat­
edly throughout his work. Since music had been established as a
discipline, and its role delineated many hundreds of years before Bacon
wrote his Opus maius, the reader of this work could also relate, for
example, the principles of jigurae corporales et superficial, exemplified in
contemporaneous music notation to Bacon’s discussion. In fact, the
very presence—also in one’s mind—of music notational figurae, standing
as they did for musical substance, made this point. “Spiritual and
corporeal substances,” superficial and corporeal figures, surface itself,
time and motion, as well as the concept itself of “certain and plain,”
were also primary concepts for contemporaneous, thirteenth-century
writers on music, who would have been Bacon’s peers. They can also
be related to musical style of his time. Bacon established a cluster of
concepts and terms for each of these subjects, as well as a summary
of how they could be comprehended within music. Many of the terms
used for emphasis are also used by Augustine, signaling an affinity of
purpose and directionality that existed between the two authors.14*
Bacon, however, deliberately shows how both term and argumenta­
tion have been enlarged by Aristotle’s writings on the same and related
subjects. He also incorporates contemporaneous commentaries on
Aristotle into what he has to say on the subject of music and its
relationship to both the other mathematical arts and to theology.
It may be useful to follow the structure and order of Bacon’s treatise
itself, summarizing at this point what Bacon sets forth in the opening
chapters of the Opus maius concerning music and its relationship to
12 Opus maius, Engl, transl., I, 122-123, italics added.
13 This aspect of music as an instrument for making conceptual distinctions plain
is discussed in van Deusen, Theology and Music, chapter XI: uPlanus, cantus planus’'’
(177-187).
14 Copula is a case in point, a word that is frequently used by Augustine, in De
musica, and also with apparent emphasis in thirteenth-century writing on music.
Compare, for example, De musica with Fritz Reckow’s edition of, and index for, the
anonymous treatise on music, Der Musiktraktat des Anonymus 4, 2 vols. (Beihefte zum
Archiv Jim Musikwissenschafl V, Wiesbaden, 1967) as well as the discussion of common
terms used with pointed musical significance in order to exemplify philosophical con­
cepts, in van Deusen, Theology and Music', introduction, and chapter I, “Thirteenth-
Century Motion Theories and Their Musical Applications,” pp. 1-18, as well as the
index to this volume.
 230 NANCY VAN DEUSEN
the mathematical sciences, in order to compare this with his chap­
ters on the usefulness of all of the basic principles contained within
mathematics for the study of theology. First, as we have seen, it is of
interest that Bacon includes music among the mathematical disci­
plines, which are, as he states, absolutely necessary for understanding
scripture, for the study of theology, and for study itself. Mathematics
as a discipline, furthermore, preserves intellectual life and institutions
from the instability that inevitably follows from ephemeral intellec­
tual fashions and opinions that are constantly changing, and have
recourse to nothing except doubt expressed for what has been pre­
viously asserted. Music is part of a two-fold mathematical system,
that is, numbers for themselves exclusively, and numbers within propor­
tional relationships—the study of relationship and movement. Music,
therefore, is useful since it forms an analogical construct to two utterly
basic factors, that is, relationship itself, and movement or gesture.
This is the underlying reason for the privileging of mathematics
throughout intellectual history. Josephus, for example, gives the four­
fold division of the mathematical sciences, and this emphasis on
mathematics is maintained throughout what is known as late antiquity
and the early medieval period. Bacon points out that early Christian
writers, such as Augustine, as well as Jerome, and Cassiodorus, appear
to be much more interested and devote more written discourse to
them than to other studies. Augustine, who wrote an extended trea­
tise on music, provides a case in point.
Ignorance, specifically, of genuine insight into number, relationship,
movement, and the substitution of numerical figures for material reality
also makes the biblical scriptures inaccessible. These principles are
all made clear by music. Therefore, to ignore music, is to render scrip­
ture itself incomprehensible. “Not a few things in the sacred books an
ignorance of the principles of music closes and covers up,” said Augus­
tine.15 Again, according to Augustine, music “made plain,” showed,
revealed, and made manifest what would otherwise be incomprehen­
sible, a capacity music as a science held in common with arithmetic,
since both took into consideration the relations that exist in num­
bers. This clarity of manifestation is the principal reason for the utility
of music. Finally, musical training applies to all of the acts of life.
15 Augustine, quoted by Bacon, Opus maius, Engl, transl. I, 208; cf. De musica (PL
32, cols. 1082ff.): that musical instruments, and music itself clarify matters is an
underlying theme within Augustine’s entire treatise, but note especially Chapter I.
ROGER BACON ON MUSIC 231
What did music make plain, and what became manifest by musi­
cal study? Bacon continues to point out, in much detail, the useful­
ness of all of the mathematical sciences for the proper understanding
of scripture and the study of theology. There are seven headings
under which the mathematical sciences contribute indispensable capaci­
ties as well as specific details for the study of the Bible. These areas
include: 1) celestial movements and distances, 2) places, 3) chronology
which relies upon an understanding of prior and posterior, beginning,
points along the way or events, fruition, span, longevity—all of which
form the substance of chronology—and accidents, 4) figurae or litterae
that give physical significant form to intellectual and sound substance,
5) number and relationships of numbers, or proportion, and 6) music.
Bacon includes, in his extended discussion, many examples of how
each category of comprehension specifically contributes to the under­
standing of the biblical scriptures, making the point that the study of
mathematics is necessary to the study of theology. For example, a
capacity for understanding movement and length contributes to a
comprehension of vastness, an abstraction. According to Ptolemy, in
the Almagest, it requires 36,000 years for a star to complete its circuit
of the heavens. The earth, on the other hand, can be traversed by
foot in three years.16
With regard to place, Bacon states that the whole of scriptures is
full of places. The Bible contains lengthy passages dealing with regions,
states, deserts, mountains, seas, and other places of the world, with
cities, famous regions, with the conclusion that “history frequently is
distasteful because of the infinite number of places. Nevertheless, place
is the basis for spiritual meaning.” Jerome, furthermore, thought that
one should actually visit these places for the purpose of understand­
ing scripture.17 Not only are the Biblical scriptures full of places, but
every other author of note, such as Augustine, Cassiodorus, and
Isidore, as well as Origen, whose writing contained a multitude of
places. “Do not read these names of places with disdain, or think
Scripture is a worthless texture of many names, but be assured that
in these are contained greater mysteries than human speech can utter,
or mortal ear can hear.”18 Bacon writes, “But it is the function of
16 Bacon, Opusmaius, Engl, transl., I, 200ff.
17 Bacon, Opusmaius, Engl, transl., I, 203f.
18 Bacon, Opusmaius, Engl, transl., I, 205, quoting Origen on the multitude and
diversity of places; cf. Bacon, Opus tertium, ed. Brewer, 203f.:Deinde descendo ad
radicem secundam, quae est de cognitione locorum mundi. Manifestum enim est
 232
NANCY VAN DEUSEN
astrology and astronomy to give explanations and full certitude with
regard to the places in the world. . . . But he who knows the lengths,
breadths, depths, heights, variety of qualities, as heat, cold, dryness,
humidity, and of those following these four, softness, hardness, thick­
ness, thinness, harshness, smoothness, aridity, fluidity, slipperiness, and
innumerable other qualities which are defined in the fourth book of
the Meteorologies. Moreover, colors, savors, odors, beauties, ugliness,
pleasantness, sterility, fertility, matter infected, corruptible, and their
opposites, and others which have to be considered in their place—
he who knows all these can understand clearly the literal sense and
delight himself in it, and can pass to the spiritual meanings in a
calm and glorious manner. For by considering a few facts relating to
the places named, we can express important meanings in a moral,
allegorical, and analogical sense.”19
With respect to the usefulness of geometry for the study of figures,
Bacon writes: “Oh, how the ineffable beauty of divine wisdom would
shine and infinite benefit would overflow, if those matters related to
geometry, which are contained in scripture should be placed before
our eyes in physical forms,” and, further, “For the sake of all things
in general. . . nothing can be known concerning the things of this
world without the power of geometry . . . because we can understand
nothing fully unless its form is presented before our eyes; and there­
fore in the Scripture of God, the whole knowledge of things to be
defined by geometrical forms is contained and far better than mere
philosophy could express it.”20 Numbers, according to Bacon, are
always to be taken literally, that is in the literal sense, according to
all their arithmetical properties, “to the end that through fitting simili­
tudes the spiritual meaning may be elicited.”21
Finally, with respect to music’s distinctive usefulness in accessing
the scriptures, Bacon writes that music is necessary “for the under­
standing of the nature and properties of these matters, as well as
quod totus textus decurrit super haec loca, et per haec loca corporalia significantur
loca spiritualia, et per vias ad ea viae spirituales. . . . Et etiam res locatae non possunt
cognosci nisi per loca; quia complexiones earum accidunt per complexiones locorum.
Cf. as well, Robert Grosseteste, Prooemium to the Hexaemeron, (ed. Richard C. Dales
and Servus Gieben, OFM. Cap., London, 1982), 17-48, who fills his prologue with
a diversity of places, the etymologies of their designations, and their importance.
19 Bacon, Opus maius, Engl, transl., I, 205f. The entire passage has been quoted
to give indication of Bacon’s style.
20 Bacon, Opus maius, Engl, transl., pp. 233f.
21 Bacon, Opus maius, Engl, transl., p. 242.
ROGER BACON ON MUSIC 233
matters specifically pertaining to music itself.” It is not, as he states,
necessary for an understanding of scripture that the theologian actu­
ally be able to sing, that is, have a practical knowledge of singing,
and of instruments, and of other specific musical matters, yet he should
be able to grasp its “nature and properties,” as well as understanding
writings specifically on this subject. This acquaintance with musical
material and a comprehension of its nature was useful for understand­
ing the large vocabulary of musical terms in scripture, such as rejoice,
shout for joy, sing, play upon the cithara, cymbals, and many other
instruments. Further, there are “many kinds of meters contained in
the sacred Hebrew text, of which the writers in their expositions
take note in many ways. But it belongs to music to give the under­
lying reasons for these although grammarians teach the practical rules
regarding them.” What follows gives ample evidence for the fact that
Bacon had read Augustine’s De rnusica, Bacon writes:
Moreover, the whole pronunciation o f Scripture consists in accents,
longs, shorts, colons, commas, and periods: and all these belong caus­
ally to music, because of all these matters the musician states the reason,
but the grammarian merely the fact. For so the authors of philosophy
decide, also Augustine so decides regarding them in dealing with music.
For one part of music deals with what is audible, the other with what
is visible, as authorities decide.
Bacon goes on to deal with the audible, that is, the human voice
compared to musical instruments, melody, as in singing, meter, and
all the “nature and properties of all songs”, meters, feet, “rhythm,
and varieties of relations in rhythms, as well as accents within verse,”
with Censorinus as his authority for that subject. Accent (accino, accinis)
derives from “to sing,” since “every syllable has its own proper sound
either raised, lowered, or composite, and all syllables of one word
are adapted or sung to one syllable on which rests the principal sound.
Thus length and shortness and all other things required in correct
pronunciation are reduced to m usic.. . . Music, moreover, consisting
in what is visible, is necessary.”22
Bacon’s short synopsis of the uses one might put to music skims
off several of the most general subjects of Augustine’s De rnusica, as
Bacon himself states. One of the most important of these is the fact
22 Bacon, Opus maius, I, 259f. Cf. Augustine, De rnusica (PL 32, cols. 1082f.): open­
ing remarks of treatise: Sonorum certas dimensiones obseruare non ad grammaticam spectat, sed
ad musicam.
 234 NANCY VAN DEUSEN
that music and grammar have sound in common, yet music searches
out the rationality of, and sense experience within, sound, whereas,
grammar is purely descriptive, and, accordingly, must be learned by
rote. Augustine’s extensive classification and elucidation of the varieties
of metrical feet do, in fact, as Bacon states, give evidence for rela­
tionship itself, and for the nature of motion. Augustine had reduced
meters, feet, and “matters of this kind to the subject of music.” Having
observed this, Bacon writes of the visible, that is, of instruments and
their constructs, with which one might achieve some acquaintance,
so that the theologian might be able to know “how use has to be
made of them on account of their numberless mystical meanings
besides their literal ones.” As we have observed, what is visible, how­
ever, is Bacon’s priority, as he states, “Music, moreover, consisting
in what is visible, is necessary, and that it is such is evident from the
book on the Origins of the Sciences. For whatever can be conformed
to sound in similar movements and in corresponding formations, so
that our delight may be made complete not only by hearing, but
by seeing, belongs to music. Therefore dances and all bendings of
bodies are reduced to gesture, which is a branch of music, since these
are conformed to sound in similar movements and corresponding
formations, as the author of the aforesaid book maintains. Therefore
Aristotle says in the seventh book of the Metaphysics that the art of
dancing is not complete without another art, that is, without another
kind of music to which the art of dancing is conformed.”23
Bacon succeeds, in these short, succinct paragraphs, in bringing
together, without particularly calling attention to the fact, Augustine’s
De musica with Aristotle’s Metaphysica. But there is another reason why
his section on music is so short, particularly compared to the other
sections that seem, by comparison, to be full of details. Music, as he
has taken care to state in more than one context, discloses basic
principles themselves, that is, the natures and properties of the quint­
essential aspects that cause the other mathematical sciences to differ
from each other, both in their approaches and in the information
they make manifest. Music by its very nature and properties makes
clear the principle of movement and length, necessary for discussion
of what he names “celestial things,” places and surface, the components
23 Bacon, Opus maius, Engl, transl., I, 260, an extension of the quotation given
above. Bacon refers to Robert Kilwardby’s De ortu scimtiamm; cf. discussion of Bacon’s
Communia mathematica below.
ROGER BACON ON MUSIC 235
of the substance of chronology, that is, time-concepts of prior and
posterior, beginning, and event, as well as the accidents of chronology.
Music by its very nature demonstrates movement in time, how time
changed, and how one could tell that it had changed because of its
mutated characteristics. In other words, the abstractions, “prior” and
“posterior” became utterly plain, even to a child, by means of music.
Further, by means of visual aspects, the jigurae of music notation,
music made clear the capacity of figures themselves to physically
present meaning. Finally, music exemplified number and proportion.
We have seen how Bacon, in each case, initiates his choice of
topic related to music by, right from the start, presenting a theme
Augustine, in his De musica, also emphasizes. This is also true of his
later work, the Communia mathematica. The science that deals with
transient, that is, non-permanent, discrete quantity is the science of
music, writes Bacon. These discrete parts—since music constantly
changes—or each part, i.e. vox, is, however, to be found within move­
ment or passiones, a subject, that, accordingly to Bacon, had been
misunderstood by many. The alliance, or conformity, of “passing,
discrete, quantifiable part” to connected motion composed of con­
nected parts, presents a unified quality of connected, formated, charac­
teristic motion, or gesture. Gesture, then, is the “root” of music itself—
the actual place where music can be found.24 As the culmination of
what Bacon has to say concerning music, this passage—indeed the
entire portion of the treatise—exemplifies his overall treatment of
music. The observation that the very substance of music was related
24 Bacon, Communia mathematica, ed. R. Steele, 51: Sciencia vero de quantitate
discreta non-permanente est Musica, et hec communiter sumpta ad speculativam et
practicam habet considerare quantitatis discrete non-permanentis partes et passiones
et causas et opera et instrumenta et omnia que circa hanc habent term inari.. . .
Sicut igitur in divisione partium quantitatis dictum est et expositum sonus, ut vox et
alii soni sunt quantitates discrete non-permanentes, sed Musica est de hujusmodi
speciebus principaliter et secundario de quibusdam aliis que sono possunt conformari
motibus consimilibus et figuracionibus competentibus ut omnia vadant simul in unam
declaracionem completam sicut in unum finem cujusmodi sunt non omnes motus
sed quidam determinati, ut gestus et exultacio et omnes flexus corporum et partium
eius. Et hoc determinatur in libro De O rtu Scienciarum in quo dicitur quod gestus
est una radix Musice, quoniam potest conformari sono motibus consimilibus et
configuracionibus competentibus, hujusmodi enim motus vadunt in unum finem cum
sono, scilicet in delectacionem completam, et habent easdem proporciones, et
configurantur et conformantur ei, quod patet per experienciam, quoniam tunc sonus
vocis humane vel cithare vel alterius instrument! quantum decet delectat quando
gestus et exultaciones et flexus corporum proporcionales simul perficiuntur.
 236
NANCY VAN DEUSEN
to gesture, is Augustine’s observation.25 That movement may be in­
finitely divided, for purposes of measurement, into discrete, quantifi­
able, segments is a topic taken up and elaborated upon in Aristotle’s
Physics,26 Further, Bacon, in the passage that immediately follows,
suggests that delectability received through the aural faculty—again
a preoccupation of Augustine—is enhanced by the combination of
visible bodily movement with what is heard in terms of music given
forth by the voice or by an instrument, such as a stringed instru­
ment. Music combines visible motion with sound.27
25 This is true, but not always with positive effect; see Augustine, De musica, Chapter
II {PL 32, col. 1083) under the topic: Musica quid sit, modulari quid sit: Musica est
scientia bene m odulandi. . . sed quia video modulari a modo esse dictum, cum in
omnibus bene factis modus servandus sit, et multa etiam in canendo ac saltando
quamvis delectent, vilissima sint; volo plenissime accipere quid prorsus sit ipsa
modulatio, quo uno pene verbo tantae disciplinae definitio continetur.
26 Continuous motion is divisible; see Aristotle, Physics, 200b 13; 17. This concept
of the divisibility of motion into discrete, measureable increments was also exten­
sively discussed by Robert Grosseteste, both in his early treatise on the liberal arts,
and within his commentaries on both the Physics and the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle,
for example: Proportiones vero motuum secundum duplicem motus divisibilitatem
considerantur. Est enim motus divisibilis divisibilitate temporis et secundum hanc
divisibilitatem dicitur motus duplus ad alium . . . {De artibus liberalibus, ed. Baur, 2).
Since, as far as we know, this treatise on the provinces of, and interactions between,
the liberal arts was written during the early years of Grosseteste’s academic career,
and the commentary on the Posterior Analytics well on in his writing activity, the
topic, obviously an important one within Aristotle’s Physics, occupied him for many
years. Bacon’s discussion of the topic, as well, as far as we know, occurs in his
mature work, that is, the Communia mathematica, a section on music that was, presum­
ably, his final discussion at length of the discipline of music. For a discussion of the
impact of this concept on writing concerning music, see “Thirteenth-Century Motion
Theories” in van Deusen, Theology and Music, especially 6ff.
27 Bacon, Communia mathematica, ed. R. Steele, 52 (the complete passage included
for context): Propter quod dicit Aristotiles septimo Methaphysice quod ars saltandi
non vadit in finem unum sine alia arte, nec alia ars sine ilia, quoniam ars sonandi
in debitis armoniis cantus et consonanciarum et in instrumentis, et ars saltandi, id
est, faciendi gestus et exultaciones et omnesJlexus corporum quando conjunguntur simul tunc vadunt
in finem mum qui est completa delectado duorum sensuum, scilicet visus et auditus, et quando
separantur tunc est delectacio incompleta et neuter vadit in suum finem ut oportet;
propter quod subjectum Musice non est solum sonus, licet sit principale subjectum,
ymmo Musica considerabit omnia ilia que possunt similibus proporcionibus conformari
sono et vadunt in finem unum completum, et non versatur circa aha visibilia nec
tangibilia nec quecumque aha. Unde motus pulsus qui obiiciuntur tactui, hcet habeant
discrecionem quandam ut motus gestus et easdem proporciones que sunt in sono et
gestibus ut medici determinant, tamen quia non possunt sono et gestui conformari
ut faciant delectacionem unam completam non cadunt sub consideracione Musice,
et similiter multi motus visibiles alii a gestibus faciunt secundum proporciones quas
habent gestus et soni, sed non proporcionantur eis in unum finem, et ideo de eis
musicus non curat. The concept of delectability—sensuous dehciousness—and expres­
sions such as suavitas, ducti bene canunt, delectari, etiam in canendo ac saltando quamvis delectentis
frequently occur throughout Augustine’s De musica. The specific connection Bacon
ROGER BACON ON MUSIC 237
Bacon cites his contemporary Robert Kilwardby’s De ortu scientiarum
and Aristotle’s Metaphysics within the context of his discussion of music
and gesture,28 but the entire passage again brings together Augustine
with Aristode in a reciprocal relationship, demonstrating how the
topics selected as primary by Augustine are in fact reinforced by a
reading of Aristode. The two authors, together, had been able to
grasp the essence of music’s character and power. Bacon could have
gone on to show by careful example, relating specific musical instance
to each of his subjects, how all of this was indeed the case. This,
however, was not Bacon’s priority, and a treatment of that kind would
have, no doubt, been inconceivable to him, since the purpose of his
treatise was to set forth the properties all of the mathematical sci­
ences had in common, or how they, as basically related, differed
from one another.29 Specific musical examples of discrete “sound
makes between number and sense perception is also made by Augustine. See also
Augustine, De ordine {PL 32, col. 1010): Quod vero ad aures, quando rationabilem
concentum dicimus, cantumque numerosum rationabiliter esse compositum; suavitas
vocatur proprio jam nomine. Sed neque in pulchris rebus cum nos color illicit,
neque in aurium suavitate cum pulsa chorda quasi liquide sonat atque pure, rationabile
illud dicere solemus. Restat ergo ut in istorum sensuum voluptate id ad rationem
pertinere fateamur, ubi quaedam dimensio est atque modulatio.
28 Bacon was, no doubt, referring to Metaphysics 1016al: The things, then, that are
called one by accident, are called so in this way. (2) of things that are called on in
virtue of their own nature some (a) are so called because they are continuous, e.g.
a bundle is made one by a band, and pieces of wood are made one by glue; and
a line, even if it is bent, is called one if it is continuous, as each part of the body
is, e.g. the leg or the arm. O f these themselves, the continuous by nature are more
one than the continuous by art. A thing is called continuous which has by its own
nature one movement and cannot have any other, and the movement is one when
it is indivisible, and indivisible in time. Those things are continuous by their own
nature which are one not merely by contact; for if you put pieces of wood touching
one another, you will not say these are one piece of wood or one body or one
continuum of any other sort. Things, then, that are continuous in any way are called
one, even if they admit of being bent, and still more those which cannot be bent,
e.g. the shin or the thigh is more one than the leg because the movement of the leg
need not be one. And the straight line is more one than the bent; but that which
is bent and has an angle we call both one and not one, because its movement may
be either simultaneous or not simultaneous; but that of the straight line is always
simultaneous, and no part of it which has magnitude rests while another moves, as
in the bent line (revised Oxford English translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes, 2 vols.
[.Bollingen Series LXXI. 2, Princeton, New Jersey, 1984]), II, 1604.
29 Bacon mentions this several times, for example: Musica sicut tota Mathema­
tica, et ideo proporciones et armonie que hie debent esse sunt omnino aliene a
proprietatibus (aliter proporcionibus) quantitatis et Mathematice. Preterea ex predictis
constat Musicam considerare quantitatem discretam non-permanentem, sed hujusmodi
proporciones et armonie que sunt in elementis et inter corpus et animam et in
partibus anime sunt permanentes et in rebus permanentibus et ideo nichil faciunt
ad Musicam (ed. Steele, 53).
 238 NANCY VAN DEUSEN
portion” or tone within motion would have required an additional,
detailed treatise, De musica, or Musica disciplina—the sort of specific
treatise he actually did write in the area of optics. Bacon, it seems,
was primarily interested in what could be discerned and observed
with the eyes.30
Bacon, it would appear, desired to communicate well what he had
learned, and to influence his contemporary intellectual environment,
that was, Bacon thought, composed of human beings who felt they
had, generally speaking, learned quite enough as it was.31 He wanted
to interact with the intellectual culture of his own day, and also desired
to convince students of the usefulness, not only of the liberal arts,
and especially of music, but also of philosophy-theology. So far as
we are able to tell, he did not achieve that goal, either for his own
generation, or subsequently. T.S. Brewer, in his preface to the 1859
edition of Roger Bacon’s Opus minus and the Compendium philosophise,
stated that the Opus minus— as well as most of Bacon’s other works—
attracted very little notice, a state of affairs of which Bacon himself
complained. This neglect was attributable, Brewer thought, to erro­
neous notions of its contents. It seems that an “imaginary notion”
had been formed of both Bacon, the writer, and what he, in fact,
had written.32
30 Bacon’s obvious special interest in sight contrasts with that of Robert Grosseteste,
who was especially interested in sound.
31 See Burke’s preface to his English translation of Bacon’s Opus maius.
32 Preface to Brewer’s edition, xiv-xix. Brewer further notes that “theology and
philosophy languished, partly from the superior rewards and attractions of the law,
and partly from the prejudices of the age. Indifference to science on the part of the
vulgar assumed the shape of fixed contempt and hostility to the learned.” Bacon
ignored, or opposed, the “vulgar,” to whom he frequently refers. It is interesting to
compare Brewer’s view of Bacon’s life, as well as his assessment of the reasons for
what he considers to be the neglect of his works, with other biographies and assess­
ments, such as those contained in the preface to Burke’s English translation of the
Opus maius, the assessment of Allan B. Wolter, OFM, in his article on Bacon in The
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (4 vols. ed. Paul Edwards [New York, London, 1967], I,
240-242); and the short biographical summary contained in the Cambridge History of
Later Medical Philosophy (884-885). Brewer thought that Bacon had been neglected
because his colleagues were envious, and, citing Matthew Paris, his family royalist
by persuasion, Wolter because of his irrascibility. Sten Ebbesen, in his chapter entitled,
The Source of Medieval Scholastic Logic,” in the Cambridge History of Later Medieval
Philosophy, designates Bacon as idiosyncratic, who “did dig up Augustine’s Dialectica
and found something useful for his own inspiration” {CHIMP, 122). Further, the
period of Bacon’s imprisonment is placed by various writers as early as the late
1250’s or soon before his death in 1292, and several different reasons for this incar­
ceration are given. In short, a thorough appraisal of Bacon, his work, and influence,
would be welcome.
ROGER BACON ON MUSIC 239
If Bacon did not appeal to his own intellectual environment of the
mid- to late thirteenth century—an aversion to both his writing style
and the ideas he expressed that recurred in the mid- to late nine­
teenth century—perhaps he can be more spontaneously appreciated
today, concerned as he is with usefulness, with effective education,
and, finally, with the uses of diversity. The diversity and variety of
the physical world with its diversities and varieties of figures, bound­
aries, races, rivers, and phenomena, tantalized and absorbed him,
apparently, for his entire life. Music, as the science of diverse and
varied tones, demonstrated by its very nature the concept of diver­
sity and variety itself. Music, as a science that engaged both the eyes
and the ears, for Bacon, showed the way to a deeper, more pro­
found, understanding of these utterly basic principles.
Further, Bacon shows a genuine hunger for rapprochement between
the physical world and the word, between observable physical phe­
nomena and the communication of these phenomena. A given lan­
guage, with its idiomatic expressions is autonomous; if science were
also autonomous, there would be no problem, nor necessity to trans­
late its internal principles into another, verbal language.33
Certainly this is another principle that, so far as Bacon is con­
cerned, cannot be adequately understood without music, since it is
an inquiry that comes directiy under the category of matter. Music
is composed of substance with its own physical properties, namely,
those of sound. A portion, obviously, of the physical world, it is a
substance onto itself. One has transformed it and mutated it, actu­
ally beyond recognition, when one describes music with words. The
question for Bacon is, can one actually translate musical—or scientific
33 The idiomatic has its own properties, that is, a “vocabulary” is constructed
from language. Latin is idiomatic in that it retains its own substance, varied accord­
ing to diverse idiomata that are distinct from every other linguistic substance. Just so,
the sciences have their own language, and conventional Latin vocabulary is not
sufficient to express these terms. (Quarta causa potest esse quod vocabula infinita
ponuntur in textibus theologiae et philosophiae, de alienis linguis, quae non possunt
scribi, nec proferri, nec intelhgi, nisi per eos qui linguas sciunt. Et necesse fuit hoc
fieri propter hoc, quod scientiae fuerunt compositae in lingua propria, et translatores
non invenerunt in lingua Latina vocabula sufficientia, cf. Opus tertium, ed. Brewer,
90.) Bacon is not only advocating learning languages, but also pointing out the
problem of expressing a given science by the use of language at all. The writer goes
on to say that not only does one have to know both languages, i.e. the language
from which one translating, as well as the language into which one is making the
translation, but one must also be intimately acquainted with the subject matter itself,
since all three have their own autonomous germane properties.
 ROGER BACON ON MUSIC 241
240 NANCY VAN DEUSEN

substance into words? The answer is no, but music itself can make recurring finality to Bacon’s acknowledgment of this fact in all three
principles themselves manifest. Further, the physical world must some­ of Bacon’s extended treatments of music within the Opus maius, the
how be brought into a framework of language. Questions follow: Opus tertium, and the Communia mathematica. Music, by its physicality,
what is the role of language for scientific investigation? How does its comprehensibility, its delectability, and even its non permanence,
language accomplish what it can accomplish? What are, in fact, the was supremely capable of providing, in a proportional relationship,
differences between physical substances and the language that describes analogies to the profoundest mysteries of motion within time, motion
them? What does it mean that a science is composed within its own and time designated by word, and substance itself. For Bacon, with­
proper language, with the implication that it cannot go outside of its out music all things remained obscured.
own language (since there may be, literally, no words to use)? Finally,
Bacon observes that the non-negotiable qualities of language—there­
fore, in some respects the most important—are related to scientific
language, not to everyday common expressions.34 And yet, words are
powerful. Through language we gain “profound cognition, great
desire, just intent and the strength of confidence” writes Bacon.35
The work of the mind is done with words, and in words the mind
also delights. The problem of uniting and relating non-verbal physi­
cal phenomena with adequate words to describe and express them is
to be taken seriously.
In this, as in all other difficult matters, music makes plain what
would otherwise remain incomprehensible.36 There is an underlying,

34 See Bacon, Opus tertium, ed. Brewer, pp. 90-96. Bacon himself was not able to
answer, even to his own satisfaction, all of the questions he raised. More than once
he comments on the great difficulty to actually learn anything at all, since only with
great effort can one break the confines of recognizing and understanding only what
one already knows. In a sense, each person is locked into, and limited by the per­
sonal and intellectual language spoken and understood. Again, in a sense, each one
is, therefore, as is the case with each one of the sciences, onto oneself in a non-
negotiable and non-communicable isolation.
35 Bacon, Opus tertium, ed. Brewer, p. 96: Sed considerare debemus quod verba
habent maximam potestatem; et omnia miracula facta a principio mundi fere facta
sunt per verba. Et opus animae rationalis praecipuum est verbum, et in quo maxime
delectatur. Et ideo cum verba proferuntur profunda cogitatione et magno desiderio,
et recta intentione, et cum forti confidentia, habent magnam virtutem. Nam cum
haec quatuor contingunt excitatur substantia animae rationalis fortius ad faciendum
suam speciem et virtutem a se in corpus suum et res extra, et in opera sua, et
maxime in verba, quae ab intrinsecus formantur; et ideo plus de virtute animae
recipiunt.
36 There is scriptural precedent for this certitude, cf. Psalm 49, 1-4: Hear this,
all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world: Both low and high, rich
and poor, together. My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my parabolam aurem meam; Aperiam in psalterio propositionem meam. All three trans­
heart shall be of understanding. I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my lations present the concept of obscurity “opened” by a musical instrument, with the
dark saying upon the harp (King James version), cf. Psalm 48 in the Vulgate ver­ implication that an instrument forms order in sound material. Cf. Bacon, Opus tertium,
sions: . . . Os meum loquetur sapientiam, Et meditatio cordis mei intellegentiam. ed. Brewer, 228: Post hoc tetigi utilitatem musicae in Scriptura; et sancti non possunt
Inclinabo in proverbium aurem meam, Pandam ad sonum lyrae aenigma m eum / satiari de laude musicae respectu theologiae et Scripturae Sacrae intelligendae .. .
Os meum loquetur sapientiam. Et meditatio cordis mei prudentiam. Inclinabo in (p. 233), cf. 232ff.
 11. ROGER BACON ON LIGHT, VISION, AND THE
UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORCE

David C. Lindberg

Introduction

Light was one of the most important entities in the medieval cosmos,
and Roger Bacon was its most accomplished medieval student. Bacon
was well-read and well-informed on all of the new sciences presented
to Western Europeans through the translations of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. But the one that he knew best and that occu­
pied the most space in the writings of his mature years was the sci­
ence of light and vision—known to him and his contemporaries as
perspectiua or scientia de aspectibus. However, Bacon did not conceive
light merely as the instrument of vision; he regarded it also as the
key to an understanding of the inner workings of nature, a privileged
(because of its visibility) case of universal causal agency and, conse­
quently, an opportunity for the most intimate inspection of natural
causes at work. Bacon referred to the generic causal agent of which
light was a visible instance as species (or likeness). This chapter will
deal with light in ail of its manifestations—the propagation, reflec­
tion, and refraction of visible light; its participation in the act of
sight; and the causal role of species in nature.
What were the sources of Bacon’s knowledge? Although Bacon
had European predecessors in the investigation of light— Robert
Grosseteste (ca. 1168-1253) was undoubtedly the most important—
Bacon was the first to master the full corpus of translated Greek and
Arabic works on the subject. In the first place, he was well acquainted
(as any European scholar must be) with Plato’s Timaeus and its dis­
cussion of light and vision. He was thoroughly familiar with the
mathematical analysis of light and vision in Euclid’s Optica and
Catoptrica, translated as De visu (or De aspectibus) and De speculis, respec­
tively. He knew Ptolemy’s Optica {De aspectibus in its Latin version)
and Alkindi’s De aspectibus, both of which went well beyond the mathe­
matics of light and vision but which, nonetheless, were frequently
perceived as demonstration pieces of the mathematical program. He
 244 DAVID G. LINDBERG
possessed a thorough mastery of the Aristotelian corpus, including all
of the books touching upon light and vision—most notably De anima
and De sensu, where Aristotle offered a detailed physical account of
light and the act of vision, but also the Meteorologica and works on
animals. He had studied the anatomical and physiological analysis of
vision by Galen (as embodied in the De oculis that circulated under
the name of its translator, Constantine the African) and Averroes.
He was the first western European to master the great De aspectibus
of Alhacen,1 where the various strands of thought on light and vision—
mathematical, physical, and medical—were thoroughly and brilliantly
integrated. And he developed his doctrine of the multiplication of
species out of the emanationist metaphysics of Alkindi’s De radiis,
Avicebron’s Fons vitae, Avicenna’s Physics and Metaphysics, and the Liber
de causis.2
Finally, Bacon drew on a modest literature concerning light and
vision indigenous to the Latin world. He had full command of the
encyclopedic tradition of Rome and the early Middle Ages, which
occasionally touched on phenomena of light and vision. He was influ­
enced by Augustine’s treatment of these subjects in his Literal Commentary
on Genesis. The works of pseudo-Dionysius, with their metaphysics
and theology of light, could hardly have escaped his notice. And he
drew both inspiration and content from the works of Grosseteste, a
distinguished Oxford scholar from the previous generation, for whom
Bacon had deep admiration.
Through his mastery and use of these sources, Bacon became a
key transitional figure in the history of the science of perspectioa and
one of the leading Western authors of the doctrine of the multiplica­
tion of species. It was Bacon, more than any other author in the
Latin world, who taught Europeans how to think about light, vision,
and the emanation of force.
1 It is high time historians of medieval science ceased to employ the erroneous
spelling “Alhazen” (invented in the sixteenth century). The universal spelling in
medieval Latin manuscripts was “Alhacen” or (less commonly) “Alhaycen,” “Alacen,”
or “Alphacen”—all of them transliterations of the Arabic “al-Hasan.”
2 For a fuller account of Bacon’s sources, see the introduction to David C. Lindberg,
Roger Bacon and the Origins of Perspectiva in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1996).
LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORGE 245
The Multiplication of Species
Bacon’s theory of the multiplication of species had Neoplatonic roots.3
One of the Neoplatonic authors who exercised a crucial influence on
the direction of Bacon’s thought was Alkindi (d. ca. 866). Developing
ideas that had originated with Plotinus (d. 270), Alkindi argued (if
we assume, as Bacon did, that his De aspectibus and De radiis are to be
read together) that “rays” emanate in all directions from every point
(or small part) of everything in the cosmos, conveying the powers of
things to surrounding objects. As a result of this radiation, “every
place in the world contains rays from everything that has actual
existence”;4 everything acts on everything else, and the cosmos becomes
an intricate network of forces responsible for everything from the
radiation of heat to astrological influence and the efficacy of prayer.
These ideas were elaborated by the Spanish Jew Avicebron (d. ca.
1058), to whose works Bacon also had access. Avicebron describes
the emanation or procession of all things from the divine being, the
“First Maker,” as a dispensing “of the abundance that he has within
himself,” and argues that in this regard all created things are obliged
to imitate the First Maker. “Therefore, all substances must imitate
his action and follow him in imparting their forms and sharing their
forces as long as they find suitable recipient matter.”5*Avicebron makes
clear that what is emanated is a force (vis), ray (radius), or likeness
(species) of its source.
The background of Christian European thought on the subject is,
of course, richer and more complicated than this brief account would
suggest; but these are the essential theoretical pieces. One of the first
in Latin Christendom to reveal their influence was the distinguished
Oxford scholar and churchman Robert Grosseteste (ca. 1168—1253).
Grosseteste’s writings touch only briefly on the universal emanation
of force (what he called “universal action”), but his ideas powerfully
influenced Bacon and are therefore important to us. In his De lineis,
angulis, et fguris Grosseteste argues that every natural agent
3 A full analysis is found in David C. Lindberg, Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature: A
Critical Edition, with English Translation, Introduction, and Notes, of “De multiplicatione specierum”
and “De speculis comburentibus” (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. xxxv-liii.
4 M.-Th. d’Alvemy and F. Hudry, “Al-Kindi, De radiis,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale
et litteraire du moyen age, 41 (1974), 224.
5 Avicebron, Fons vitae, III. 13, ed. Clemens Baeumker (Beitrage gur Geschichte der
Phihsophie des Mittelalters, 1, pts. 2-4) (Munster: Aschendorff, 1895), p. 107.
 246 DAVID C. LINDBERG
multiplies its power from itself to the recipient, whether it acts on sense
or on matter. This power is sometimes called “species,” sometimes a
“likeness,” and it is the same thing whatever it may be called.. . . But
the effects are diversified by the diversity of the recipient, for when this
power is received by the senses, it produces an effect that is somehow
spiritual and noble; on the other hand, when it is received by matter,
it produces a material effect. Thus the sun produces different effects in
different recipients by the same power, for it cakes mud and melts ice.6
If this were all Grosseteste had to say on the subject, he would have
made only the relatively restricted claim that radiation issues from
everything and produces effects in recipients— a claim to which many
European natural philosophers would have assented. But he appears
to go further, arguing that if the natural philosopher masters the
geometrical rules governing the propagation of rays (the laws of reflec­
tion, refraction, and rectilinear propagation), he can “in this manner
specify the causes of all natural effects. And he can do this in no
other way, . . . since every natural action is varied in strength and
weakness according to variation of lines, angles, and figures.”7 It seems
to follow that all physical causation is reducible to the radiation of
force, governed by geometrical rules.
Bacon’s theory of the multiplication of species, developed at length
in his De multiplicatione specierum, was an attempt to articulate fully the
ideas of his predecessors on the radiation of force and to work out
all of the implications of their theory. Whereas many of his prede­
cessors had devoted but a few paragraphs or a few pages to the
subject, Bacon made it the subject of a 40,000-word treatise.
It may be well to begin our analysis of Bacon’s achievement with
a few words about the crucial term “species.” The original meaning
of this term was simply “aspect” or “form.” Augustine employed it
to designate the incorporeal likeness or image of a thing in the senses
and the intellect, by which it is perceived—usage retained through­
out the Middle Ages in theories of perception. Finally, with Grosseteste
and Bacon it acquired the broader meaning of physical or corporeal
likeness of an object, responsible (to be sure) for perception, but also
conceived as the force or power or influence by which objects act on
other objects—in short, a name given to Alkindi’s universal force.
6 Quoted, with slight modifications, from Edward Grant, ed., A Source Book in
Medieval Science (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 385-6.
7 De natura locorum, in Die philosophischen Werke des Robert Grosseteste, ed. Ludwig Baur
(.Beitrage z.ur Geschichte der Philosophic des Mittelalters, 9) (Munster: Aschendorff, 1912),
pp. 65-6.
LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORCE 247
Bacon develops this theme in the first chapter of De multiplicatione
specierum, commenting on the various synonyms of “species” employed
in different contexts. As for his own definition, a species
is the first effect of an agent; for all judge that through species [all]
other effects are produced. Thus the wise and the foolish disagree about
many things in their knowledge of species, but they agree in this, that
the agent sends forth a species into the matter o f the recipient, so that,
through the species first produced, it can bring forth out of the poten­
tiality of the matter [of the recipient] the complete effect that it intends.8
That the species is a likeness of the agent from which it emanates is
apparent from the fact that agents always endeavor to make the
recipients of their influence like themselves; clearly this can occur
only if the species, the first effect of an agent and the intermediary
between it and the recipient, resembles the agent that produced it.
Thus fire sends forth a species that ignites flammable bodies in its
vicinity—an impossibility if the species did not bear the specific nature
of fire.
If, as Bacon believes, all agents send forth species, it remains to
inquire what kinds of things can be agents. One way of finding an
answer to this question is to examine the “sensibles”—things that can
be perceived by the senses—since Bacon held species to be the uni­
versal intermediaries between sensibles and the sense organs. But the
case is complicated by a distinction between different kinds of sensi­
bles. The nine “proper sensibles” are the primary objects of the various
senses—light and color for sight, sound for hearing, flavor for taste,
odor for smell, and the tangible qualities (hot, cold, wet, and dry) for
touch. These, Bacon argues, are indeed agents from which species
emanate.9 But there are also twenty “common sensibles,” so-called
because they are common to several of the senses. These Bacon
identifies as remoteness, position, corporeity, shape, size, continuity,
distinction or separation, number, motion, rest, roughness, smooth­
ness, transparency, density, shadow, darkness, beauty, ugliness, as well
as similarity and difference in all of the foregoing. In addition, there
are sensibles that are subordinate to these twenty: thus curvature
falls under shape, and paucity under number. The common sensibles
8 De multiplicatione specierum, 1.1, lines 75-80, in Lindberg, Bacon's Philosophy of Na­
ture, p. 6.
9 But sound is a special case, requiring lengthy analysis. O n sound, see De
multiplicatione specierum, 1.2, pp. 21-3; Perspectiva, 1.8.2, in Lindberg, Bacon and the Origins
of Perspectiva.
 248 DAVID C. LINDBERG
and the sensibles subordinate to them, Bacon insists, do not send forth
species, but are perceived through the species of the proper sensibles,
augmented by a process of ratiocination.10
But there are other approaches to the question of agency and the
sources of species. Both substance and accident send forth species.
So do matter and form; Bacon thus denies that only form is active.
Universal and singulars both produce species—though just as uni­
versal exist only in individuals, so do the species of universals exist
only in the species of individuals. Species also emanate from both
terrestrial and celestial things. In an argument that is highly relevant
to his theory of vision, Bacon insists that the senses and the sense
organs are not merely the recipients of species, but also sources of
species. This we can infer from the facts (a) that visual rays emanat­
ing from the sense of sight are required if we are to explain all of
the phenomena of vision, and (b) that sense organs can themselves
be seen—an impossibility if species did not proceed from them to
the eye of the observer.11
Two other points need to be made about the agents from which
species emanate. First, the more animate the agent is, the more active
it is in producing species, “since animate things are nobler and there­
fore more active.”12 Second Bacon formulates what we might call a
“principle of homogeneity,” important for understanding the nature of
species. According to this principle, “the species of substance is sub­
stance, the species of accident is accident, the species of a composite
is composite, and the species of a simple is simple, just as the species
of matter is matter, of a form is form, of a universal is universal, and
of a singular is singular.”13
We have learned thus far that species are likenesses of the agents
from which they issue, and we know that a species has the same
specific nature as the agent it represents (so that the species of sub­
stance is substance and of accident is accident). But we still know
little about the physical nature of species. (1) Do they actually emerge
as individuals from their agents and proceed with local motion through
10 O n the proper and common sensibles, see De multiplicatione specierum, 1.2, lines
220-349, pp. 32-41; Perspective 1.1.3 and 1.10.1, in Lindberg, Bacon and the Origins of
Perspectiva.
11 De multiplicatione specierum, 1.2, lines 30-196, 350-77, pp. 24-33, 40-3- I 5 lines
5-126, pp. 70-7.
12 De multiplicatione specierum, 1.2, lines 200-8, pp. 32-33.
13 Ibid., lines 381-5, pp. 42-3.
LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORGE 249
a suitable medium to a recipient, as some of the terminology employed
above might suggest? (2) Are they impressions made in the recipient?
Both of these theories had ancient antecedents and, if they were not
to be accepted, needed to be refuted. (3) Are species created ex nihilo
by their agents? (4) Do agents acquire species from outside them­
selves and dispatch them to recipients?14 Finally, are there further
alternatives?
Bacon easily refutes the four positive theories outlined just above
and invests his major effort in a long and elaborate defense of a fifth
alternative—one of the centerpieces of De multiplicatione specierum.15There
is only one viable alternative, Bacon believes, to the four refuted
theories—namely, that species are generated in recipient matter by
“a bringing forth” out of its “active potentiality.” It follows that no
species passes from the agent to the recipient; rather, a species is
elicited in the recipient out of potentiality that already exists there.
In order for this to take place, the agent and recipient must be con­
tiguous; once that condition has been met, “the active substance of
the agent, touching the substance of the recipient without intermedi­
ary, can alter, by its active virtue and power, the first part of the
recipient that it touches. And this action flows into the interior of
that part, since the part is not a surface, but a body. . . .”16
But the requirement of contiguity restricts the applicability of this
theory to a very limited range of phenomena. The interesting cases
are those in which the final recipient is separated by some distance
from the original agent. In such cases, a medium between the origi­
nal agent and the final recipient is required. The original agent elic­
its a species of itself in the first part of the medium, contiguous with
the original agent; Bacon calls this the “first effect” of the agent.
This first species elicits a second species in the second part of the
medium (contiguous with the first part of the medium); the second
species elicits a third species in the third part of the medium (con­
tiguous with the second part of the medium); and so forth. It is
important to understand that it is not the original agent that elicits
species in consecutive parts of the medium, but the species in the
immediately preceding part of the medium, for contiguity is required
at every stage of the process. Note also that the relevant parts of the
14 Ibid., 1.3, lines 3-49, pp. 45-47.
15 Ibid., 1.3, lines 50-207, pp. 47-57
16 Ibid., 1.3, lines 151-5, pp. 52-3.
250 DAVID G. LINDBERG
medium are all of equal size; and they are minute—the smallest parts
of the medium in which the agent can produce an alteration. Note,
finally, that as this process of “multiplication” (the very apt term
chosen by Bacon to describe the process of successive generation)
continues, the species generated will become progressively weaker.17
Bacon offers a nice summary of the theory in his Perspective applying
it there specifically to the propagation of light:
But a species is not body, nor is it moved as a whole from one place
to another; but that which is produced [by an object] in the first part
of the air is not separated from that part, since form cannot be sepa­
rated from the matter in which it is unless it should be soul; rather, it
produces its likeness in the second part of the air, and so on. There­
fore, there is no local motion, but a generation multiplied through the
different parts o f the medium; nor is it body that is generated there,
but corporeal form that does not have dimensions of itself but is pro­
duced according to the dimensions of the air; and it is not produced
by an effluence from the luminous body but by a drawing forth out of
the potentiality o f the matter of the air. . . ,18
There are fine points of Bacon’s theory of the multiplication of spe­
cies that we have not covered, but this captures the essentials.19
Light and its Propagation
Thus far the analysis has been exclusively physical and causal—an
analysis of the nature of species, their relationship to the agents that
produced them, and the physics of their multiplication through physical
media. But Bacon is also interested in the geometry of propagation,
a topic to which he devotes substantial attention in all three of his
major perspectival treatises. In De multiplicatione specierum, it is the
propagation of species in general with which he is occupied; in the
Perspectiva and De speculis comburentibus, his focus is on the propagation
of the species of light. But the geometrical rules and the physics that
account for the phenomena are the same in the two cases.
The multiplication of species, Bacon argues, can occur along any
of five kinds of line—straight or direct, reflected, refracted, twisting,
and accidental. But species prefer to proceed along straight lines:
17 Ibid., 1.4, II. 1.
18 Perspectiva, 1.9.4.
19 See Lindberg, Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature for more.
LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORCE 251
Now, that multiplication desires by nature to occur along straight lines
is determined by the authors of works on optics, especially Ptolemy
and Alhacen; and they show by sensible experiments how multiplica­
tion runs along straight lines in all inanimate substances until it is turned
back by an obstacle and forms an angle— or else by a second medium
of different rarity .. ., in which an obliquely incident multiplication
passing from the first medium to the second forms an angle.20
Species proceed in straight lines in uniform, homogeneous media (the
only exception being animated media, to be dealt with below); and
they deviate from rectilinearity only when they encounter an obstacle
that reflects them or when they are obliquely incident on a transpar­
ent interface that refracts them.21
When a species encounters an opaque body, it can no longer
multiply itself in a straight line and, therefore, “seizing the occasion
from [the presence of] the dense body, [it] returns by its own power
in the direction from which it came.” Since it is unable to “multiply
itself in the dense body, it multiplies itself in the original medium,
forming an angle.” And, in fact, it retreats from the opaque body at
an angle (formed by the path of the retreating multiplication and the
surface of the opaque body) equal to the angle between the incident
ray and that same surface of the opaque body. In short, the angles
of incidence and reflection are equal; and the incident and reflected
rays define a plane perpendicular to the reflecting surface. It is impor­
tant to note that Bacon does not conceive of reflection as an instance
of mechanical rebound (as Alhacen and many others had done): the
species “undergoes no violence; rather, when it is prevented from
proceeding [straight ahead] by the density of the resisting body, the
species generates itself in some [other] direction open to it. For it
could be violently driven back, as a ball from a wall, only if it were
body.”22
Refraction is a more complicated phenomenon. A species obliquely
incident on the interface between two media of different density is
refracted. If the second medium is denser than the first, the species
is bent toward the perpendicular to the refracting interface (drawn at
the point of incidence), the amount of bending increasing as the density
20 De multipikatime specierum, II. 1, lines 66-73, pp. 94-95.
21 Ibid., II.2, lines 3-52, pp. 91-93. In Bacon’s vocabulary, it is a matter of in­
difference whether one speaks of variations in transparency, variations in density, or
variations in rarity.
22 Ibid., II.2, lines 87-9, pp. 100-1; III.l, lines 102-5, pp. 184—5.
 252 DAVID G. LINDBERG
LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORGE 253

of the second medium increases; if, on the other hand, the second
medium. Bacon thus implicidy applies a principle of uniform action:
medium is rarer than the first, the species is bent away from this
the species elects that path in the second medium which will most
perpendicular, the amount of bending increasing with greater rarity
nearly preserve its strength. This interpretation is confirmed by Bacon’s
of the second medium. This much of the theory is merely descriptive;
analysis of the refraction of a species passing in the opposite direc­
the hard part, yet to come, is to identify the causes of refraction.23
tion, from a denser to a rarer medium. Such a species finds that
Bacon’s starting point is the assumption that a species perpendicu­
“every path is easy for it by comparison with the difficulty it encoun­
larly incident on the interface between two transparent media of
tered in the first body. Therefore, the species is able to assume a
different densities is better able to penetrate that interface and pass
direction away from the perpendicular, and it must necessarily choose
into the second medium than is an obliquely incident species. O r as
this direction, since in so far as possible it acts uniformly and in one
Bacon expresses it, the perpendicular species is the stronger of the
mode.”26
two (other things being equal). He assumes, moreover, that the two
Before leaving the subjects of reflection and refraction, we must
media, because they differ in density, also differ in the resistance
consider the images produced by the reflection and refraction of light.
they offer to propagation of the species. It follows that a species inci­
The simplest case of image-formation by reflection is illustrated in
dent obliquely on such an interface will be bent as it passes between
figure 1. Let AB be a plane mirror, O the visible object, and E the
the two media.24
observer’s eye. The species responsible for vision is multiplied along
But why is the species bent in one direction rather than another?
line OCE (it makes no difference to the theory whether the species
And why, in particular, is the direction of bending such as to endow
emanates from the object at O or the eye at E), so constructed that
the species with a course in the denser medium closer to the perpen­
angle ECB equals angle OCA. Now the visual sense, Bacon argues,
dicular—that is, the perpendicular to the interface between the two
is unaware of the bend in the ray at C and unconsciously projects
media, erected at the point of incidence? The argument goes like
ray EC backwards (or forwards if the ray is conceived to emanate
this. Bacon has previously established (he believes) that perpendicu­
from the eye) until it intersects perpendicular OA (the cathetus)
lar incidence on a transparent interface is stronger than oblique inci­
extended from the object to the mirror. At that point of intersection
dence; he now slips (unconsciously, we must assume) from that claim
the visual power perceives image I of point O to be located. Images
to the superficially similar—but, in fact, quite different—claim that
are formed by refraction in much the same way. In figure 2, let AB
passage through a transparent substance along a line perpendicular
be a plane refracting surface, O the visible object in the denser of
to its surface is stronger than passage along any other line. Now a
the two media, and E the eye in the rarer of the two media. Let OB
species is slowed as it passes obliquely from a less dense to a more
be the cathetus, drawn from the object perpendicular to the refract­
dense medium, “because of the greater resistance offered by the coarse­
ing interface, and CD the perpendicular to the interface at the point
ness of the latter.” Therefore, “the natural virtue generating the species
of refraction. Once again, vision is unaware of the bend in ray OFE
desires the easier passage and chooses it; and this is towards the
at F and unconsciously projects ray EF backwards until it intersects
perpendicular.”25 Why exacdy does it do this? Evidently, in order to
the cathetus at I; and here the image is situated. These are the sim­
compensate for the greater resistance it encounters in the denser
plest cases of image-formation, useful for illustrating the principles
medium, the species chooses the path of greatest strength in that
involved; but Bacon is able to apply them, as well, to more difficult
problems.
23 For the description of refraction, see ibid., II.3, lines 39-80, pp. 107-11. For a
more thorough analysis of Bacon’s views on the cause of refraction, including a
comparison of his views with those of his sources and contemporaries, see David C.
Lindberg, “The Cause of Refraction in Medieval Optics,” British Journal for the His­
tory of Science 4 (1968-69), 23-38.
24 De multiplicatione specierum, II.3, lines 99-131, pp. 113-15.
25 Ibid., II.3, lines 138-41, p. 115.
26 Ibid., II.3, lines 151-4, p. 115.
254 DAVID G. LINDBERG LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORGE 255

But we need to be careful how we talk about these images. Is any­

thing really located at the points (I) where we have marked the image
in figures 1 and 2? Can an observer go around behind the mirror in
figure 1 and find some real thing corresponding to an image? Are
images real things? Or, is there perhaps something on the mirror
surface at point C? The answer to all of these questions is negative.
Bacon addresses this matter with some vehemence, aparently argu­
ing against opinions being advanced in his lifetime. What we call an
“image,” he argues, is simply the object seen outside its true place.
We destroy the error of the multitude who believe that the species of
the object [seen by reflection] is truly [behind the mirror at the inter­
section of the visual ray and the cathetus] and diffuses itself through
the mirror to appear there. But the species of the visible object is not
[in that p lace],. . . nor does it pass through the mirror. . . . Thus it is
said that the place of the image is at the intersection of the visual ray
and the cathetus, not according to the truth of its existence there but
only according to appearance.27

The existing things are objects and observers and reflecting or refract­
ing surfaces; “image” is simply a name for the object misperceived
as to.location.
The two remaining modes of propagation can be dealt with briefly.
What Bacon calls the “twisting path” (lima tortuosa) is encountered
only in animated media. Its theoretical purpose is to account for the
transmission of species through the “twisting threads of the nerves”
from the various sense organs to the appropriate seats of perception;
and Bacon’s best example is the propagation of the species of light
and color through the optic nerve to the brain. An agent, he argues,
cannot produce a species along a twisting path in an inanimate medium,
but only in a straight lin e.. . . But in a medium animated by the power
of the soul, a species is directed according to the requirements of the
soul’s operations; and since the operations of the soul with regard to
species occur in the twisting nerves, the species follows the twisting of
the nerve because of the necessity of the operations of the soul.28

Finally, accidental multiplication is a special case, since it has to do

with secondary, rather than primary, radiation. When solar light passes
through a window (without reflection or refraction), it not only cre­
ates a rectangle of light on the wall or floor opposite the window,
but also illuminates the comer of the room outside of that rectangle.
Figure 2 27 Perspectwa, III. 1.3.
28 Ibid., II.2, lines 99-104, p. 103.
 LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORCE 257
256 DAVID C. LINDBERG

surrounding the crystalline and vitreous humors; but the spider’s web
How is this possible? Bacon’s answer is that every point of a primary
does not, in his judgment, qualify as a genuine tunic.
species (proceeding from the original agent along rectilinear, reflected,
These tunics contain three humors. At the back of the eye is the
or refracted lines) is also the origin of weaker, secondary species issuing
vitreous humor, so-called because it has the consistency of melted
in all directions from that point. These are the species of a species,
glass. (Bacon also refers to this humor as the interior or posterior
rather than the species of the original agent, and by means of them
glacial humor.) In front of the vitreous humor is a thin, lentil-shaped
we see not the original agent, but only its primary species.29 Acci­
humor called the crystalline or anterior glacial humor. Containing
dental multiplication will occupy an important place in Bacon’s optical
the vitreous and crystalline humors (the interior and anterior glacial
explanations, bringing intelligibility to a number of otherwise per­
humors) is the spider’s web. Finally, at the front of the eye, outside
plexing phenomena.
the spider’s web, filling the aperture of the uvea and extending from
the crystalline humor to the cornea, is the albugineous humor (our
aqueous humor), which has the consistency of the white of an egg.
Vision
Although Bacon’s conception of the structure of the eye is not iden­
tical with ours, most of its features and much of its terminology are
Bacon’s account of the geometry of the propagation of light was heavily
still recognizable. Bacon’s schematic drawing of the eye is given in
dependent on Greek and Islamic antecedents. So too was his theory
of vision—though in both cases Bacon refined, extended, and amended figure 3.
what he borrowed. And always there was the need to mediate among
competing claims and to solve unsolved problems in the literature
available to him. On the question of ocular anatomy, fundamental
to any comprehensive theory of vision, Bacon drew from the Galenic
tradition as presented in the works of Hunayn ibn Ishaq (circulating
as a work of its translator, Constantine the African), Alhacen, and
Avicenna.
The eye, Bacon argued, consists of three tunics (six if a distinction
is allowed between their anterior and posterior halves) and three
humors.30 The innermost tunic, which is continuous with the inner­
most coat of the optic nerve, is the uvea or grape-like tunic in its
anterior half (grape-like, inasmuch as the aperture at the front of the
eye, through which light enters, is like the end of a grape after the
stem has been removed), the retina in its posterior half. The second
tunic, continuous with the middle coat of the optic nerve is called
the cornea in its anterior portion, the secundina in its posterior por­
tion. And the outermost tunic, which grows out of the outermost
coat of the optic nerve, is the consolidativa or conjunctiva (the white
of the eye) in front, the sclera in back. In addition to these tunics,
Bacon identifies a capsule or web, which he calls the “spider’s web,”

29 Ibid., II.2, lines 116-41, pp. 103-5. Figure 3

30 Perspective 1.2.2—3.
 258 DAVID G. LINDBERG
The function of the retina, which contains veins, arteries, and fine
nerves, is to offer nourishment to the vitreous humor; the function of
the remaining tunics is to contain, protect, and darken the humors
in the interior of the eye. The vitreous humor, having received nourish­
ment from the retina, passes it onward to the crystalline humor. The
albugineous humor consists of surplus substance from the crystalline
humor. All three humors of the eye are transparent, as is the cornea,
in order to permit free multi-plication of the species of light through
the eye to the optic nerve.
Vision begins when visual species reach the crystalline humor, the
seat of vision within the eye. The crystalline humor is “altered” by
these species; owing to its density, species “linger in it for a while”
and become “apparent to the visual power and thus enable a judg­
ment to be formed. And it must be somewhat dense, so that it may
undergo a kind of pain on account of the species,. . . although this
pain is not always perceptible, as .. . when the species are moderate.”31
But vision is not completed in the eye. Species do not come to
rest in the crystalline humor but, having “lingered” there briefly,
proceed into the vitreous humor, onward to the optic nerve, and
through the optic nerve (filled with visual spirit) to the common nerve,
where the two optic nerves join and the species passing through them
converge. According to Bacon,
it should be understood . . . that sight is not completed in the eyes. For
two different species reach the [two different] eyes; and differences in
the species lead to differences of judgment. . . . It is necessary, there­
fore, that the [ultimate] sentient organ, where vision is completed, should
be something other than the eyes; and the eyes, which pass the species
of the visible object on to it, are its instruments. And this [ultimate
sentient organ] is the common nerve at the surface of the brain, where
the two nerves coming from the two parts of the anterior region of the
brain join together, afterwards dividing and extending themselves to
the eyes; and this is the origin of the visual faculty.32
Here, in the common nerve, the final visual judgment is rendered.
Now it is one thing to argue in qualitative terms that visual spe­
cies pass through the eye and optic nerve to the common nerve; it
is another and much more difficult thing to add geometrical detail,
tracing the course of radiation through the eye convincingly and with
precision, taking full account of the rules of refraction. Alhacen had
31 Ibid., 1.4.2.
32 Ibid., 1.5.2.
LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORCE 259
already formulated a scheme that achieved this, and Bacon appro­
priated its essentials and incorporated them into his theory. The first
necessity was to impose an idealized, geometrical model on the eye.
The eye, Bacon argued, “has a shape approaching that of a sphere,
as do its tunics and humors, because of the praiseworthy properties
of the sphere, which offers fewer impediments [to motion] than does
a figure having angles, and which is the simplest figure and the most
capacious of isoperimetric figures” (see fig. 3).33 It does not matter, in
fact, whether or not the entirety of the eye and its tunics and humors
are spherical; it is required merely that the surfaces through which
species pass should be portions of spheres having their centers of
curvature arranged along the central axis of the eye. In Bacon’s
scheme, the cornea and front surface of the crystalline humor share
the same center—and Bacon regards this as the center of the eye.
The center of the uvea is anterior to the center of the eye, the cen­
ter of the consolidativa posterior to it.
With this anatomy of the eye in mind, we are now ready to trace
radiation through the eye. Species emanate in all directions from
every point (or small part) of the visible object. It follows that every
point .on the surface of the eye (and, for practical purposes, every
point in the interior of the eye, including the crystalline humor) receives
species from every point of the visible object. But if this is true, there
is an obvious problem. If every point of the crystalline humor (the
seat of the visual power in the eye) receives species from every point
of the visible object, how can the clarity of vision experienced by
people with good eyesight be accounted for? If species from every
point in the visual field mingle at every point of the crystalline humor,
the result should be total confusion. If we are to explain clarity of
vision—the fact that individual objects and individual parts of indi­
vidual objects are distinguishable and that the arrangement of objects
in our perceptual field corresponds to the arrangement of those same
objects in the external world—we need to establish a one-to-one cor­
respondence between points in the eye influenced by species and the
points in the external visual field from which those species emanate.
That is, it would appear that clarity of vision can be explained only
if each point in the crystalline humor is somehow the recipient of
species from only a single point in the visual field; and the points in
the crystalline humor that receive these species must have the same
configuration as the external points from which those species emanate.
33 Ibid., 1.3.1.
260 DAVID G. LINDBERG
The solution to this problem is found in the geometry of the eye.
Consider the infinity of rays issuing from some point of the visible
object; only one of these rays, the one directed toward the center of
curvature of the cornea, falls on the cornea perpendicularly and enters
it without refraction; because the cornea and the anterior surface of
the crystalline humor are concentric, any ray perpendicular to the
former is also perpendicular to the latter, which it is therefore able
to penetrate without refraction. All other rays are obliquely incident
on the cornea and again on the crystalline humor; consequendy, they
are refracted, and in the process they are weakened (because a bent
ray is inevitably weaker than a rectilinear ray). Now the same argu­
ment can be applied to each point of the visible object and the radia­
tion issuing from it: only one ray from each point in the visual field
enters the eye without refraction. The collection of such rays forms
a pyramid of light, with the visible object as base and the center of
curvature of the cornea as vertex (see figure 4). The rays of this
pyramid, Bacon argues, are the vision-producing rays; all others are
bent and weakened and, therefore, contribute only incidentally to
visual perception.34
visible object
crystalline
humor
34 Ibid., 1.6.1. On a visual role for rays that fall obliquely on the eye, see 1.6.2.
LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORGE 261
But, of course, vision does not end in the crystalline humor; conse­
quently, species need to be traced through the eye to the optic nerve
and the common sense. The vision-producing rays are those repre­
sented in figure 4, one ray from each point of the visible object, all
directed toward the center of the eye. But before they actually reach
the center of the eye, they encounter the posterior surface of the
crystalline humor; and here all are refracted away from the center,
except the central axis, which is perpendicular to everything and
therefore remains unrefracted. This has the fortunate consequence of
preventing intersection of the rays and the reversal and inversion of
the image that would, in the view of ancient and medieval perspec-
tivists, inevitably accompany intersection. The rays follow a rectilin­
ear path through the vitreous humor to the end of the optic nerve;
they continue through the nerve, following its tortuous path (while
apparently retaining their orderly configuration) to the common nerve,
where the act of vision is completed.
But there is one problem not yet adequately discussed, the solu­
tion to which required all of the ingenuity Bacon could muster. The
sources available to Bacon were by no means agreed about the direc­
tion of the radiation responsible for vision. Euclid, Ptolemy, Tideus,
and Alkindi were all extramissionists—committed to the proposition
that the radiation responsible for vision had its origin in the eye.
Galen and Hunayn ibn Ishaq must also be regarded as extramissionists.
And among Latin writers, St Augustine (whose authority was not to
be trifled with), Adelard of Bath, and William of Conches all defended
versions of the extramission theory.
Standing against all of this extramissionist opinion were three great
intromissionists: Alhacen, Avicenna, and Averroes, none of whom could
be taken lightly, and all of whom had argued convincingly that the
radiation responsible for vision passed from the visible object to the
observer’s eye. And finally, there were writers who made room for
both intromitted and extramitted rays. Plato was an early represen­
tative of this opinion, and Grosseteste a more recent one. And Anstotle,
though an uncompromising defender of the intromission theory in
his works on perception and the soul, apparently conceded in his
Meteorology and Book on Animals that extramitted rays are also involved
(a result, in the latter case, of mistranslation of the relevant passage).
Bacon’s starting point was the proposition that all of the authori­
ties mentioned had possessed at least a portion of the truth; if some
had incomplete knowledge, at least none of them had been wrong.
But the only way of bringing the contrary opinions of this diverse set
 262 DAVID C. LINDBERG
of authors into a plausible unity was through a combined intromission-
extramission theory of the sort that Aristode (apparendy) and Gros­
seteste (actually) had promoted. The broad oudine of Bacon’s theory,
therefore, was certainly taken from Aristode and Grosseteste; but its
details were Bacon’s original contribution.
The intromission theory is implicit in Bacon’s Perspectiva from the
beginning; indeed, a reader of the first twenty-three of its sixty-six
chapters would never suspect that the extramission theory was about
to put in an appearance. In these first twenty-three chapters, Bacon
develops the theory that species emanate in all directions from every
point in the visual field, reach the eye, and proceed to the crystalline
humor and the common nerve, where they are perceived by the
visual power. He also buttresses this theory with arguments from
authority and experience. As for authority, Bacon argues that “vision
requires the species of a visible object; for without that species there
will be no sight, according to Aristode, who says in On the Soul, book 2,
that sense universally receives the species of sensible things so that
the act of perception can occur.”35 Empirical evidence leads to the
same conclusion: “When there is an obstacle between the species of
an object and the eye, sight does not occur, but when all impedi­
ments are removed, so that the species reaches the eye, then the
object is seen.” Persistence of vision teaches the same thing:
That colors act on sight is evident from the fact that when somebody
has looked at a garden thickly planted with vegetation, on which the
light of the sun shines, and continues to gaze at it, if he then shifts his
vision to a dark place, he will discover in that dark place the form of
the light colored by the green of the vegetation.36
And there are more arguments.
But having developed a convincing theory of vision around the
intromission idea, Bacon raises the surprising question, whether “the
species of the eye is [also] required for the act of sight,” and answers
it in the affirmative. If this is not an abrupt change of direction, it
is at least the introduction of a theoretical element for which Bacon
did nothing to prepare his reader. Again Bacon employs the argument
from authority, invoking the extramissionist opinions of Aristode,
Euclid, Ptolemy, Tideus, Alkindi, and Augustine. Aristode, for example,
35 Ibid., 1.5.1.
36 Ibid.
LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORCE 263
states in his De animalibus “that seeing is nothing other than the visual
power extending to the visible object.” And Ptolemy “urges throughout
his whole book that visual rays proceed from the eye to the visible
object.”37
However, Bacon also has arguments of his own to offer. Natural
objects complete their action through their own species, “as the sun
and other celestial bodies cause the generation and corruption of
things through their powers dispatched into mundane things. Terres­
trial substances do likewise, as fire dries and consumes and does many
other things through its own power.” If this is so, then “the eye must
perform the act of sight through its own power. But the act of sight
is the perception of a visible object at a distance, and therefore the
eye [must] perceive the visible object through its own power multi­
plied to the object.”38 Bacon also advances empirical arguments in
the form of phenomena that can be explained, he believes, only by
the assumption that species issue from the eye. One of these is the
alleged ability of people with deep-set eyes to see farther than other
people. One of several causes of this capability is
that the visual power is more gathered together and united when it is
more deeply buried in the eye socket, so that it follows a narrower and
straighter path to the visible object and is less dispersed and spread
out and thus proceeds through the place occupied by the visual pyra­
mid. For this reason a man who wants to look at something carefully
from a distance places the hollow o f his hand to the socket of his eye,
so that the visual power will be more concentrated and less dispersed.39
Additional proof is found in the (legendary) phenomenon of the
“observation well,” according to which the stars are visible by day to
a person situated at the bottom of a deep well. “One reason for
this,” Bacon argues, “is the narrowness of the pathway, which con­
stricts the visual power over a considerable distance, so that it pro­
ceeds more directly to the region of the stars above the well; and
this occurs because the eye is buried in the depth of the well.”40
Bacon has other arguments, including appeal to the light that can be
seen emanating from the eye of a cat.41
37 Ibid., 1.7.2.
38 Ibid., 1.7.4.
39 Ibid., II. 1.1.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid., 1.5.1.
 264
DAVID G. LINDBERG
If the evidence for extramission is as persuasive as Bacon appar­
ently believes it to be, what does he make of the opposition of Alhacen,
Avicenna, and Averroes? Bacon replies that these authors were not
opposed to the claim that extramitted species exist, but only to the
much more ambitious claim that “a visual species. . . extends from
the eye to the visible object, that by means of it the eye perceives
the very object, and that it seizes the species of the visible object and
returns this species to the eye.”42 If, on occasion, these authors appear
to condemn extramission outright, we must understand that they were
merely expressing popular opinion in the course of an argument,
without meaning to endorse it. In short, they were not opposed to
the existence of visual species, but only to attempts to endow them
with inappropriate functions.43
What, then, is their appropriate function? Bacon assigns them an
ancillary role, arguing that
the species o f mundane things are not immediately suited o f them­
selves to bring to completion an action on the eye, owing to the nobility
of the latter. Therefore, they must be assisted and excited by the spe­
cies [of the eye], which proceeds through the region occupied by the
visual pyramid, altering and ennobling the medium and rendering it
commensurate with sight. Thus the species of the eye prepares for the
approach of the species o f the visible object and, moreover, ennobles
the latter so that it is wholly conformable to and commensurate with
the nobility o f the animated body, the eye.44
This argument is an extension of a basic Platonic and Augustinian
theme, which maintains that the soul is superior to the body and
therefore, in sensation, cannot be the passive recipient of sensory
impressions; rather, the soul is the causal agent in sensory acts. In
Bacon’s adaptation of this theory, the extramitted species of the eye
(nobler than the medium and the inanimate objects in the external
world because of the close connection between the sense organs and
the soul) prepares the way for sensation, ennobling both the material
medium and the incoming species, making them “commensurate”
with the eye, and rendering the species capable of “completing its
action” on the eye.
42 Ibid., 1.7.3.
43 This paragraph is borrowed, with only minor changes, from the introduction
to my forthcoming Bacon and the Origins of Perspectiva.
44 1.7.4, 12.
LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORCE 265
What are we to make of Bacon’s theory of vision? Much of its
content, of course, was borrowed from Alhacen and other predeces­
sors; but all of it passed through Bacon’s mind, where it was judged,
corrected, elaborated, and synthesized. And it was introduced by Bacon
into the western optical tradition, where it became the standard
account of visual theory until Johannes Kepler replaced it with the
theory of the retinal image early in the seventeenth century. The
persuasive power of the theory came not only from its ingenious and
plausible scheme for establishing a one-to-one correspondence between
points in the external visual field and points in the eye, but also
from its successful unification of mathematical, physical, anatomical,
physiological, and perceptual approaches to the phenomena of sight.
Following the lead of Alhacen, Bacon took the whole corpus of authori­
tative opinions on the subject of vision (whatever their methodology),
resolved difficulties, and worked out compromises, thereby blending
the achievements of the mathematicians, the physicists, and the phy­
sicians into a workable, convincing, and (for a considerable period)
enduring synthesis.
The Methodology of Perspectiva
Were the optical achievements discussed above made possible by the
application of a new (and perhaps modern) scientific methodology?
This possibility is suggested by the praise heaped on Bacon by nine­
teenth- and twentieth-century mythologizers, eager to view him as a
champion of modem scientific methodology.45 And the magnitude of
this praise has been sufficient to call for a reasoned response. O f
course, Bacon himself made dramatic methodological claims, issuing
appeals for the cultivation of both mathematics and experimental
science, as instruments vital for the reform of learning and the pres­
ervation of Latin Christendom. O f mathematics, Bacon wrote:
. .. knowledge of this science prepares the mind and elevates it to sure
knowledge of all things, so that if one grasps the basics of wisdom
concerning this science and applies them correctly to knowledge of
45 For example, A.C. Crombie argued in his Robert Grosseteste and the Origins o f
Experimental Science, 1100-1700 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), p. 140, that “Roger
Bacon . . . first postulated a theory of science as a means of discovering reality and
truth, and then used this methodological theory in detailed researches.”
 266 DAVID G. LINDBERG
other sciences, one will be able to know all things that follow, without
error or doubt, easily and powerfully.46
As for experiment, Bacon began his Tractatus in quo Jit de experientia in
communi (devoted to “experimental science,” the science of experi­
ence) by assuring his reader that “without experience nothing can be
sufficiently known, nor will the soul ever rest in the light of truth
unless it discovers the cause by means of experience.”47 But to what
degree did perspectiva, in Bacon’s hands, fulfill the promise of these
methodological prescriptions? Let us look for an answer, beginning
with the question of mathematization.
It is beyond question that Bacon (following Euclid, Ptolemy, Alhacen
and other predecessors) gave perspectiva a strong mathematical orien­
tation. His perspectival treatises [Perspectiva, De multiplicatione specierum,
and De speculis comburentibus) contain an abundance of serious geo­
metrical arguments, supported by a multitude of geometrical dia­
grams. It goes without saying that Bacon’s analysis of the rectilinear
propagation of light was geometrical (for otherwise we could not specify
its propagation as “rectilinear”). It is also no surprise to those of us
with a modern education to find that reflection and refraction were
the objects of careful geometrical analysis. But Bacon also employed
geometry to elucidate the act of vision, tracing the path of radiation
from the object of vision to the eye and through the eye to the
common nerve. As we have seen, he even geometrized the anatomy
of the eye. And he was able to provide geometrical explanations of
a variety of other visual phenomena, such as double vision, the bent
appearance of a rod partially submerged in water, and the apparent
enlargement of the sun and moon when near the horizon.
But it does not follow that, in Bacon’s hands, geometrical analysis
extended to the furthest reaches, the most fundamental principles of
perspectiva. Although he argued in his Opus tertium that “the causes of
natural things cannot be given except by means of geometry,” Bacon
was unable even to come close to fulfilling this implied mandate in
his optical studies.48 His analysis of the reflection and refraction of
46 Opus maius, ed. J.H. Bridges, 3 vols. (London: Williams & Norgate, 1900), IV. 1.1,
vol. 1, pp. 97-98.
47 For the Latin text, see Jeremiah M.G. Hackett, “The Meaning of Experimen­
tal Science (scientia experimmtalis) in the Philosophy of Roger Bacon,” Ph.D. disserta­
tion (University of Toronto, 1983), p. 271.
48 Opus tertium, in J.S. Brewer, ed., Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera quaedam hactenus in edita
(London: H er Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1859), p. 111.
LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORGE 267
light, for example, was heavily geometrical and went some way toward
identifying mathematical causes of observational phenomena. Thus
Bacon could offer a geometrical account, based on the geometrical
laws of refraction, to explain why images formed in a plane mirror
are located as far behind the mirror as the object is before it, or
how it is that we are able to secure clear vision of the external world.
But when Bacon took the next step, endeavoring to identify the causes
that lie behind and explain the laws of reflection and refraction, he
found it necessary to appeal to mechanical analogies and metaphysi­
cal principles: direct blows are more powerful than oblique ones,
refracted light selects that direction of passage in the second medium
that will most nearly maintain uniformity of strength, and so forth.
Bacon’s fullest account of visual perception, given in his Perspectiva,
begins with an (entirely nonmathematical) analysis of the soul, sensa­
tion, and cognition; and these provide the setting and foundation for
the entire work. Even Bacon’s analysis of the propagation of light
or species, to which he devoted De multiplicatione specierum, was funda­
mentally a study of the nature of species and the physics of their
propagation through transparent media. It appears that the ultimate
explanatory principles in Bacon’s optical writings were not geometri­
cal at all, but physical, metaphysical, and perceptual.49
References to experience and experiment are scattered through
Bacon’s Perspectiva, De multiplicatione specierum, and De speculis comburentibus.
The term experior (with its inflected forms) appears thirteen times in
the Perspectiva; experientia appears ten times, experimentum or experimmtalis
ten times, and experimmtator twice. Roughly similar statistics would
hold for the other two treatises. But before we can make anything
out of Bacon’s use of these terms, we must understand what he meant
by them. The Latin term experimentum and its synonym, experientia,
denoted, in their root meanings, a “test” or “trial,” and Bacon was
prepared to accept many kinds of tests as “experiments,” including
contrived or artificial experiments, casual everyday experience avail­
able to everybody, reports of the experiences of other observers, what
I call “geometrical experiments,” even the spiritual experience of divine
illumination. “Experimental science,” as he employed the phrase,
covered all of these “experimental” practices, as well as various bodies
of practical knowledge or lore allegedly acquired by empirical means.
49 For a fuller analysis of Bacon’s attempt to mathematize perspectiva, see the intro­
duction to Lindberg, Bacon and the Origins of Perspectiva.

268 DAVID G. LINDBERG
Because another chapter in this volume is devoted explicitly to Bacon’s
experimental science, I will not delve further into the larger issue of
Bacon’s empiricism here; the question to which I will confine my
attention is the degree to which and the ways in which experiment
or experience entered into Bacon’s investigations of the science of
perspective50
I wish to present and to offer a brief defense of four conclusions.
First, Bacon’s perspectival theories were not primarily the product of
his own empirical activity. I wish I could convince myself that this
point is too obvious to require restatement, but there has been enough
fatuous literature on the history of early science, castigating those
who formulated scientific knowledge by appeal to any resource other
than personal experimental or experiential activity, to suggest other­
wise. Let us be clear, then, that Bacon proceeded as natural philoso­
phers and scientists have always proceeded, by constructing an edifice
largely out of inherited materials. His primary source of perspectival
knowledge was the written word—the scholarly tradition going back
to Alhacen, Alkindi, Ptolemy, Aristode, and Euclid.51 Bacon’s origi­
nal contribution was to take the radically diverse materials available
to him in this scholarly tradition and, through a combination of
judicious selection and intelligent compromise, to produce a work­
able and convincing synthesis. This was a significant achievement;
but it was theoretical, rather than empirical, in nature.
Second, it does not follow that first-hand experiments or experience
played no role in the formation of Bacon’s perspectival theories. A
certain amount of simple optical observation is inescapable: in the
simplest acts of seeing, we experience many of the phenomena that
a theory of vision must explain. Moreover, we all encounter rain­
bows, double images, after-images, and instances of reflection and
refraction, whether we seek them or not; this was true for Bacon no
less than for the rest of us. However, Bacon’s works evince knowl­
edge of perspectival phenomena going well beyond what can be
learned from such simple, everyday observation. Consider the follow­
ing account of the phenomena of the rainbow, taken from part VI of
Bacon’s Opus maius:
50 For more on empiricism in Bacon’s optics, see my introduction to Roger Bacon
and the Origins of Perspectiva in the Middle Ages, from which some of the phraseology
employed above has been borrowed.
51 A similar claim can be made for modem scientists, who obtain most of their
scientific knowledge from scholarly texts and papers.
LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORCE 269
From this it is evident, as we learn by experience, that there are as
many rainbows as observers. For if two people stand observing the
rainbow in the north and one moves westward, the rainbow will move
parallel to him; if the other observer moves eastward, the rainbow will
move parallel to him; and if he stands still, the rainbow will remain
stationary. It is evident, therefore, that there are as many rainbows as
observers, from which it follows that no two observers can see the
same rainbow, although an inexperienced person does not comprehend
this fact. For the shadow of each observer divides the arc of the rain­
bow in half; therefore, since the shadows are sensibly parallel, they do
not meet at the middle of the same rainbow, and each observer must
see his own rainbow.52
Bacon’s theory of radiation through small apertures offers additional
examples. Bacon maintains that solar light projected through a small
triangular aperture appears to contract immediately beyond the aper­
ture, before beginning to dilate. This observation is certainly not called
for by the geometrical theory that Bacon is in the process of construct­
ing; on the contrary, it throws a monkey-wrench into his theoretical
efforts, and we therefore have solid grounds for assuming that the
observation is a genuine one. Here is Bacon’s account of the matter:
AH these arguments show that the incident radiation should in no way
be narrowed beyond the aperture if the last-mentioned mode of multi­
plication were true. And since the narrowing of light beyond the aper­
ture is manifestly evident to the eyes, it seems possible to conclude, by
turning the foregoing arguments around, that light is not multiplied as
described and established above. I am therefore at a total loss to know
what to say, since I cannot deny what I see with my eyes.53
Finally, consider the observation described in Bacon’s analysis of the
maximum angle covered by the visual field. Bacon argues that
it is certain from experience that an eye at the surface of the earth
cannot see a quarter of the heaven. For a person looking at some star
directly overhead while standing on flat terrain will not be able to see
the earth, however hard he tries. . . . And therefore he does not see a
quarter, but a little less, since if the person thus observing inclines his
head slightly, he will see the earth and not the star.54
Not only is the detail convincing; but this experiment is so easily
performed that, in my opinion, the burden of proof shifts to the
person who wishes to deny that Bacon actually performed it.
52 Opus maius, vol. 2, p. 187.
53 De speculis comburentibus, VI, in Lindberg, Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature, pp. 315-17.
54 Perspectiva, 1.8.3.
270 DAVID G. LINDBERG
Third, a few of Bacon’s observations can be identified as contrived
experiments employing instruments. The clearest piece of evidence is
undoubtedly his measured value of 42° for the maximum elevation
of the rainbow, a correct value not given by any author (so far as we
know) prior to Bacon. We may appropriately infer, therefore, that
this figure was obtained by Bacon through the use of an astrolabe.
In this connection, we need to keep in mind Bacon’s claim to have
spent more than 2,000 pounds on books, experimental apparatus,
and other necessities of his research.55 There can be little doubt that
Bacon also made use of mirrors for investigating reflection, crystals
for investigating refraction, and small apertures for investigating the
phenomena of pinhole images.
We do, however, need to be cautious in our attempts to identify
genuine experiments and genuine experimental apparatus. Bacon’s
most elaborate description of a piece of experimental apparatus—
apparatus designed for the investigation of double vision—is found
in the Perspective
An investigator can prove [the phenomena of double vision] by taking
a board of a palm’s width, four or five or six palms in length, and
with a smooth surface [fig. 5]; and he should take three separate vis­
ible objects formed of wax or wood, the size of the last joint of the
little finger, shaped like pyramids; and they should be of different col­
ors for greater clarity. These objects should be arranged [longitudinally
on the board at points M, A, and N ], with a sensible distance between
them; and the middle one should be in the middle of the board, one
o f the others at the far end, and the third halfway between the middle
object and the eye. The end of the board nearest the eye should have
a cut-out, so that it can be easily applied to the eyes above the bridge
of the nose. If the axes of the eyes are then fixed on the middle object,
which will [thus] appear single, both o f the others will appear double.56
P B
D But the more usual and more important function of experience
K C L F
Figure 5
55 Opus tertium, p. 59.
56 Perspective II.2.2; cf. II.2.3.
LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORCE 271
Despite the impressive level of detail, there is no assurance that Bacon
ever built this apparatus or performed experiments with it. For one
thing, his description of the instrument comes, with little change,
from Alhacen’s De aspectibus?1 Furthermore, the demonstration that
Bacon constructs by reference to this apparatus does not depend for
its persuasive power on the actual performance of a physical experi­
ment, but rather on the geometry of the device and of the experi­
mental set-up. In short, this is a case in which a thought experiment
based on a geometrical analysis of the apparatus is as persuasive as
any actual observations that one could make. This is certainly a test,
and therefore (in Bacon’s terms) an experiment; but it is a geometri­
cal test.
That Bacon draws no hard distinction between such geometrical
thought “experiments” and other kinds of “experiments” is nicely
revealed by his analysis of the shadow cast when a small, opaque,
spherical body is bathed in the light of a larger, luminous sphere.
According to Bacon, “it is evident to sense that as the shadow retreats
continuously from the opaque body, it is continuously spread out.”
However, in the course of the argument, Bacon remarks that all of
this “is visibly evident in the figure”5758—revealing, thereby, that the
spreading of the shadow is “evident to sense” not in the material
world but in a geometrical diagram.
Fourth, observations and experiments (real or imaginary) served
theoretically significant functions in Bacon’s science of perspective The
simplest such function was to supply observational data requiring
explanation within the framework of existing theory. Thus the apparent
enlargement of the disks of the sun and moon when near the hori­
zon called forth from Bacon an explanation in terms of the already-
established rules of refraction. The principles of refraction were also
employed to explain the rod that appears bent when partially sub­
merged in water and the coin in the bottom of a cup, which becomes
visible when the cup is filled with water.59
and experiment in Bacon’s optical writings was to confirm, refute, or
challenge theoretical claims. For example, to confirm that deep-set
57 Alhacen, De aspectibus, in Opticae thesaurus Alhazeni Arabis libri septem, ed. Friedrich
Risner (Basel: Per Episcopios, 1572), III.2.12, pp. 81-83.
58 De speculis comburentibus, III, p. 293.
59 Perspectiva, III.2.4.
272 DAVID C. LINDBERG
eyes see better at a distance because their deep positioning prevents
dispersion of the visual power, Bacon reports the observation that an
observer at the bottom of a well is able to see the stars during the
daytime: “And an experiment confirms [this]; for a man situated in
a deep place, as [at the bottom of] a well, will be able to see the
stars by day that he cannot see when he is at the surface of the well,
as Pliny states . . . and as experience teaches.”60 That the observation
in question was apparently somebody else’s (and a legendary one, at
that) in no way alters the logic of the relationship between observa­
tional datum and theoretical claim.
Another example, and one that may well involve genuine observa­
tion on Bacon’s part, appears in his attempt to put to an experimental
test the theoretical claim that refracted rays are visually efficacious.
He proposes to place a straw or needle between the eye and a visi­
ble object. If all parts of the object are visible, it follows that some
parts are seen through radiation obliquely incident on the eye and,
therefore, refracted. The needle or straw
will impede the direct passage of the species of some part of [the object].
But oblique rays will fall from that object onto the cornea, since, be­
sides the one perpendicular that would come if there were no obstacle,
there comes an infinity o f oblique rays, as we have seen. Therefore, it
will be seen only by refracted rays, and not by direct rays. This is
evident by experience if you hold a straw or needle between your eye
and some visible thing; and you can easily experience this with a candle
[as visible object].61
Observational consequences of the theory are empirically verified,
thus confirming the relevant theoretical claims.
Bacon’s Achievement
How are we to judge Bacon’s achievement? In particular, must he
be condemned to insignificance by his failure to complete the mathe-
matization of perspediva and by his limited application of experimental
methodology to perspectival matters? There is no doubt that Bacon
failed to live up to his own methodological prescriptions. His applica­
tion of an experimental methodology to perspectival problems was, at
60 Ibid., II. 1.1.
61 Ibid., III.2.1.
LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORGE 273
best, spotty. Optical investigations remained, for Bacon as for his con­
temporaries and immediate predecessors, primarily a matter of intellec­
tual effort expended in the mastery of a scholarly tradition, mediation
between its divergent tendencies, and reconciliation of its competing
theories. Observations were not totally absent, but neither were they
particularly prominent. But is this cause for disapproval? What addi­
tional observations do we wish Bacon had made, and how would
they have been relevant to his theoretical concerns? Wasn’t the kind
of intellectual effort made by Bacon precisely what was required,
given Bacon’s aims, the existing state of optical theory, and the condi­
tions under which the investigator of perspectival matters necessarily
worked in the thirteenth century? Bacon’s purpose was basically
pedagogical, and the appropriate way of instructing interested scholars
of the thirteenth century on the mysteries of perspediva was to produce
a synthesis of the diverse, authoritative sources then available.
Bacon was more successful in fulfilling the mathematical portion
of his methodological program. It is true that he failed to live up to
the implied promise made in his Opus tertium, to discover geometrical
causes of all natural things.62 All too frequently, in his perspectival
studies, he found it necessary to fall back on explanatory principles
of a physical, metaphysical, or perceptual sort. Nonetheless, Bacon
(inspired by the achievements of Euclid, Ptolemy, and Alhacen) car­
ried the mathematization of optics as far as it was to go during the
European Middle Ages. Perspediva, as it emerged from his pen, had
both the appearance and the reality of a mathematical science. Bacon
was a transitional figure of great importance, who played a critical
role in the transmission of Greek and Islamic learning to medieval
Europe. It was he, more than any other, who introduced Latin
Christendom to the mathematical optics of Euclid, Ptolemy, Alkindi,
and Alhacen; who synthesized their works, clarifying and exhibiting
their methodological achievement; and who, consequently, stood at
the head of the European tradition in geometrical optics.
Bibliography
Alhacen, Opticae thesaurus AUiazeni Arabis libri septem . . ., ed. Friedrich Risner.
Basel 1572. Reprint New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1972.
62 See above, n. 48.
274 DAVID G. LINDBERG LIGHT, VISION, AND THE UNIVERSAL EMANATION OF FORCE 275

Bacon, Roger, De speculis comburentibus, ed. and trans. David C. Lindberg, ------ , ed. and trans., Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature: A Critical Edition, with
Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature: A Critical Edition, with English Translation, English Translation, Introduction, and Notes, of De multiplicatione specierum and De
Introduction, and Notes. . . . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983. speculis comburentibus [& lit]. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983.
------ , De multiplicatione specierum, ed. and trans. David C. Lindberg, Roger ----- , “Roger Bacon’s Theory of the Rainbow: Progress or Regress?,” Isis,
Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature: A Critical Edition, with English Translation, Intro­ 57 (1966), 235-48.
duction, and Notes. . . . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983. ------ , Studies in the History of Medieval Optics. London: Variorum, 1983.
------ , Perspectiva, ed. and trans. David C. Lindberg, Roger Bacon and the Ori­ ------ , Theories of Vision from al-Kindi to Kepler [& lit]. Chicago: University of
gins of Perspectiva in the Middle Ages. . . . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Chicago Press, 1976.
Bjombo, A.A., and Vogl, Sebastian, “Alkindi, Tideus und Pseudo-Euklid: ------ , “The Theory of Pinhole Images from Antiquity to the Thirteenth
Drei optische Werke,” Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der mathematischen Wissen- Century,” Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 5 (1968): 154—76.
schaften, 26, pt. 3 (1912), 1-176. Rosen, Edward, “Did Roger Bacon Invent Eyeglasses?,” Archives intemationales
Crombie, A.C., Robert Grosseteste and the Origins of Experimental Science 1100- d’histoire des sciences, 1 (1954), 3-15.
1700. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953. ------ , “The Invention of Eyeglasses,” Journal of the History of Medicine and
Fisher, N.W., and Unguru, Sabetai, “Experimental Science and Mathemat­
Allied Sciences, 11 (1956), 13-46, 183-218.
ics in Roger Bacon’s Thought,” Traditio, 27 (1971), 353-78. Smith, A. Mark, “Getting the Big Picture in Perspectivist Optics,” Isis, 72
(1981), 568-89.
Hackett, Jeremiah M.G., “The Meaning of Experimental Science (Scientia
Experimentalis) in the Philosophy of Roger Bacon,” Ph.D. dissertation (Uni­ Vogl, Sebastian, “Roger Bacons Lehre von der sinnlichen Spezies und vom
versity of Toronto, 1983). Sehvorgange,” in Roger Bacon Essays, ed. A.G. Little, pp. 205-27. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1914.
Lejeune, Albert, Euclide et Ptolemee: Deux stades de I’optique geometrique grecque.
Louvain: Bibliotheque de l’Universite, 1948. Wiedemann, Eilhard, “Roger Bacon und seine Verdienste um die Optik,”
----- , Recherches sur la catroptrique grecque, d’apres les sources antiques et medievales. in Roger Bacon Essays, ed. A.G. Little, pp. 185-203. Oxford: Oxford
Brussels: Palais des Academies, 1957. University Press, 1914.
Lindberg, David C., “The Cause of Refraction in Medieval Optics,” British Wiirschmidt, J., “Roger Bacons Art des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens, darge-
Journal for the History of Science, 4 (1968), 23-38. stellt nach seiner Schrift De speculis,” in Roger Bacon Essays, ed. A.G. Little,
------ , “The Genesis o f Kepler’s Theory o f Light: Light Metaphysics from pp. 229-39. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1914.
Plotinus to Kepler,” Osiris, n.s. 2 (1986), 5-42.
------ , “Laying the Foundations of Geometrical Optics: Maurolico, Kepler,
and the Medieval Tradition,” in David C. Lindberg and Geoffrey Cantor,
The Discourse of Lightfrom the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, pp. 1-65. Los
Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1985.
------ , “Lenses and Eyeglasses,” Dictionary of the Middle Ages, VII, 538-41.
------ , “Lines of Influence in Thirteenth-Century Optics: Bacon, Witelo, and
Pecham,” Speculum, 46 (1971), 66-83.
------ , “Medieval Latin Theories of the Speed of Light,” in Roemer et la vitesse
de la lumiere, pp. 45-72. (CNRS, Collection d’histoire des sciences, 3.)
Paris: J. Vrin, 1978.
------ , “On the Applicability of Mathematics to Nature: Roger Bacon and
His Predecessors,” British Journal for the History of Science, 15 (1982), 3-25.
------ , “A Reconsideration o f Roger Bacon’s Theory of Pinhole Images,”
Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 6 (1970), 214-23.
----- , Roger Bacon and the Origins of Perspectiva in the Middle Ages: A Critical
Edition and English Translation of Bacon’s Perspectiva, with Introduction and Notes
[& lit]. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
------ , “Roger Bacon and the Origins of Perspectiva in the West,” in Math­
ematics and Its Applications to Science and Natural Philosophy in the Middle Ages:
Essays in Honor ofMarshall Clagett, ed. Edward Grant and John E. Murdoch,
pp. 249-68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
I

12. ROGER BACON ON SCIENT1A E X P E R IM E N TA L

Jeremiah Hackett

Roger Bacon and his Scientia experimentalis has been a matter of debate
ever since the Renaissance philosophers and writers designated him
as a Magus. The mainly negative assessment of medieval philosophy
and science by Francis Bacon ensured that the teaching of any
medieval scientist would be treated as secondary.1 And the return to
Greek and Roman sources which one associates with the Renaissance
and Early Modem times ensured that even 19th century authors would
be ignorant of the actual achievements of Medieval philosophers and
scientists. It is only with the recovery of Medieval texts in a system­
atic manner since the nineteenth century that it is possible to pro­
vide a just estimate of the role and achievement of Roger Bacon and
his contemporaries. Hence, a study of Scientia experimentalis in Roger

' While Francis Bacon is generally negative about Medieval philosophers, he does
make an exception for Roger Bacon in one example concerning alchemy and medi­
cine: See Francis Bacon, in Spedding, Ellis, Heath, The Works of Francis Bacon (Lon­
don: Longmans, 1870; Reprint, Garrett Press, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1968), [Temporis
Partus Masculus], III, 534: Siquidem utile genus eorum est, qui de theoriis non
admodum solliciti, mechanica quadam subtilitate rerum inventarum extensiones
prehendunt; qualis est Bacon (my italics). See the comment of Francis Bacon in Historia
vitae et mortis, 158 for a clear use by Francis Bacon of the experimental works of
Roger Bacon. This section on the prohngatw vitae is taken from the De mirabilis potestate
artis et naturae (pub. Paris 1542) otherwise cited below as Epistola de secretis operibus artis
• et naturae. This citation from Roger Bacon has to do with the English woman who
lived for 300 years, and it is here also that Francis Bacon gets his information on
the infamous Artephius.
Since this is solid proof that Francis Bacon knew one of the central treatises,
then, we shall have to claim that this reference in Francis Bacon may have influ­
enced 19th century comment on Roger Bacon. More importantly, it raises the issue
of just how much of Roger Bacon was read by the Philosophical Chancellor. Did
he know about the great amount of Roger Bacon works in John Dee’s Library? Did
he use them? I will try to answer these questions elsewhere. There is a need to do
J this since this topic has not been well-served by recent study. Joseph Kupfer, “The
Father of Empiricism: Roger not Francis,” Vivarium 12 (1974), 52H52 recognises that
Roger Bacon has a good claim to being the Origin of Empiricism in Latin philoso­
phy, but the comparison with Francis Bacon needs much development. His main
claim that the account of the Causa erroris is the same in both Bacon’s cannot be
sustained. Yet, it is not impossible that Baron Verulam got the idea of a Causa erroris
from Roger Bacon.
 278 JEREMIAH HACKETT
Bacon must begin with a proper framing of the issue of “experi­
ment” and with an account of the modem scholarship.
A very modem attitude has been put in the form of a question:
“Did Roger Bacon developed the experimental procedures of mod­
ern research science?”2 This question hides a number of pertinent
issues. First, did the Greeks, the discoverers of this kind of thinking,
use “experiments” in their science? Second, allowing for the “new”
developments of method in modem research science, is not the above
question anachronistic in the first place? That is, whatever the com­
plex relation of medieval to early modern science, the issue to be
settled is whether or not “experiment” is a factor in Greek, Arabic,
Medieval Latin and Early Modern Science.
This issue has already arisen in the study of Ancient Greek Science.
And it is the well-considered position of G.E.R. Lloyd that we need
to look to three areas of study in order to address the issue: astronomy,
optics and meteorology. Observation and not experiment in a strict
sense is relevant to ancient astronomy. But in both optics and in
meteorology, ancient authors did not just rely on doctrines or book
knowledge. They did attempt complex experiments. And this is espe­
cially the case in Ptolemy.3 The issue which must be answered here
is whether or not Roger Bacon developed this “experimental” meth­
odology handed on from the Greeks and developed by the Arabic
scientists? Roger Bacon was a Medieval scientist and not a nine­
2 A good example of this approach is found in Martin Heidegger, “Die Zeit des
Weltbildes,” in his Holzwege and also in his Beitrage zur Philosophie. In the former, he
states: The more exacdy the ground plan of nature is projected, the more exact
becomes the possibility of experiment. Hence the much cited medieval Schoolman
Roger Bacon can never be the forerunner of the modem experimental research
scientist; rather he remains the successor of Aristotle.. . . Therefore, the discussion
of the words and doctrinal opinions of the various authorities takes precedence in
the acquiring of knowledge in the Middle Ages. The componere scripta et sermones, the
argumentum ex verbo, is decisive and at the same time is the reason why the accepted
Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy that had been taken over had to be trans­
formed into Scholastic dialectic. If, now, Roger Bacon demands the experimentum—
and he does demand it—he does not mean the experiment of science as research;
rather he wants the argumentum ex re instead of the argumentum ex verbo, the careful
observing of the things themselves, i.e. Aristotelian empeiria, instead of the discussion
of doctrines. (In Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays,
trs. William Lovitt, New York: Harper and Row, 1977, 122.)
3 See G.E.R. Lloyd, Methods and Problems in Greek Science: Selected Papers, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991, 70-99. See pp. 79-81 on experiments relating to
refraction in optics. And see 81-99 in regard to acoustics and to medical experi­
ments. As will become apparent belong, these issues arise again in the case of Roger
Bacon.
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTTA EXPER1MENTAUS 279
teenth century research scientist. Our task then is to understand his
place in medieval science and to understand the relation of that science
to the early modern science of the late Renaissance.
1. Modem Interpretations of Bacon’s Scientia experimentalis
The 19th century romantic image of Roger Bacon as a medieval
predecessor of modern science has its origin in William Whewell’s
highly influential three volume History of the Inductive Sciences from the
Earliest to the Present Time. For Whewell, the first awakening of science
was among the Greeks, the foremost of whom, as far as experimen­
tal science was concerned, was Aristotle and Ptolemy. Between this
Greek past, which was carried on by the Islamic scientists, and the
modem period lay the “midday slumber” of western science. In the
account by Whewell, a solitary figure stands out in this “stationary
period” of science, namely, Roger Bacon, who in Whewell’s interpre­
tation championed the cause of experimentation to such an extent
that he resembles the acknowledged founder of modern experimen­
tal science, Francis Bacon. For Whewell, the correspondence between
Roger Bacon and Aristotle was more a matter of sympathy of spirit
than a direct doctrinal dependence. But the resemblance between
Roger and the Philosophical Chancellor of England so astounded
Whewell that he wrote:
Roger Bacon’s works are not only far beyond his age, in the knowl­
edge which they contain, but so different from the temper of the times,
in his assertion of the supremacy of experiment, and in his contempla­
tion that it is difficult to conceive how such a character could then exist.4*
This view of Roger Bacon as an experimentalist in the sense of Francis
Bacon, a kind of precursor born out of his time, became standard
fare in the nineteenth century and in the early part of the twentieth.
Those works of Bacon, which were published in the 19th century
did tend to provide some evidence for this point of view since they
dealt with the more experimental side of Bacon’s thought. Further,
there was some evidence in the works of Roger Bacon which could
4 William Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences from the Earliest Times to the Present
Times, Vol. I, New York, 1859, 245. See also Robert Adamson, Roger Bacon: The
Philosophy of Science in the Middle Ages, Manchester, 1876.
 280 JEREMIAH HACKETT
suggest parallels with some aspects of Francis Bacon’s thought. But
there were certainly other aspects which did not.
The picture of Bacon’s Scientia experimentalis by some 19th century
scholars as the parent of modem experimental science was shattered
by the scholarship of Lynn Thorndike and Pierre Duhem in the second
decade of this century. The romantic image gave way to a more
realistic portrait. Pierre Duhem devoted much attention to two areas
of Bacon’s interest, his physics and astronomy. His comments on
Bacon’s Scientia experimentalis are, however, very brief. Duhem con­
cluded that Bacon’s experimental science did not constitute a distinct
special science. In his view, it was simply a means of replacing the
notion of reason with that of experience. The function of experience
was to test the truth of all rational statements about nature. Duhem
saw Bacon’s praise of verification as a praise of observation alone,
and he concluded that Bacon did not know experimental method in
the Modem sense of that term.5
Raoul Carton accepted Duhem’s interpretation and presented a
synthesis of all the passages by Bacon on Scientia experimentalis. Verifi­
cation (<certificate) in his view was an intuition (intuitio) of the truth of
a statement by means of an experienced effect, that is, what hap­
pened to be the case experientially. Thus, the central role of practi­
cal experience was its utility in confirming or falsifying any given
statement. For Carton, Bacon was very definitely a utilitarian or per­
haps a pragmatist in the sense of one who sought to prove truths by
the way in which they worked out in practice.6
Lynn Thorndike wrote a number of studies on the Scientia expe­
rimentalis of Roger Bacon between 1914 and 1929. Thorndike stated
that “it is admitted by many that Bacon did not anticipate modern
inventions by actual discoveries” and that “Bacon’s outspoken criti­
cism of the learning of his age is no longer unquestioningly accepted.”7
In Thorndike’s view, Roger Bacon’s experiments did little more than
5 Pierre Duhem, Le systeme du Monde: Histoire des Doctrines Cosmologiques de Platon a
Copemic, T. Ill, Paris, 1915, 442.
6 Raoul Carton, L ’Experience Physique chez Roger Bacon, Paris, 1924, 60: . . . et cette
idee inspiratrice, c’est L’Utilitarisme; la notion Baconienne de la certitude et de la
certification en derive comme une consequence necessaire. C ’est un principe
categorique chez Roger Bacon qu’en toutes choses il faut considerer avant tout l’utilite
{ante omnia utilitas cujuslibet rei consideranda est).
7 Lynn Thorndike, “Roger Bacon and Experimental Method in the Middle Ages,”
Philosophical Review, 23 (1914), 271—298. See ibid., “The True Roger Bacon I,” and
“The True Roger Bacon II,” in The American Historical Review, 21 (1916), 237-57;
468-80.
281
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTALIS
duplicate and confirm “the medieval status of experimental method
which we have already obtained from other earlier sources.”8 Fur­
ther, he argues that Bacon’s experimenta were not dissimilar to the
experiments found in the works of Robert Grosseteste, William of
Auvergne, Peter of Spain and Albertus Magnus. He found Bacon’s
works to be lacking in an account of the laboratory equipment, instru­
ments and the exact measurements of modem science.
However, Thorndike himself tended to see an incipient “inductive
method” in Bacon’s account of experimental science. He argues that
Bacon “approaches” the notion of “an inductive method through
regulated and purposive observation and experience to the discovery
of tru th .. . .”9 Thorndike’s caution in stating that Bacon “approaches”
the modern inductive method was due to the fact that, in his view,
Bacon’s experimental method
is not, like modem experimentation, the source but “the goal of all
speculation”. It is not so much an inductive method of discovering
scientific truth, as it is applied science, the putting the results of the
“speculative” sciences to the test of practical utility.10
In his analysis of the medical, alchemical, and astrological examples
of experimental science in Opus maius, part six, Thorndike maintained
that the experimental “science” of Bacon was especially connected
with alchemy and astrology. In this he saw himself as one who exposed
“the faults of Bacon’s learning, his superstition and credulity, his
belief in alchemy and astrology.”11 Further, he argued that “Bacon
fails in his attempt to draw the fine between science and magic.”12
In his view, then, Bacon placed occult science at the center of his
experimental method and in the end his Scientia experimentalis was little
more than the recognition of experience as a criterion of truth and
8 Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, II, New York, 1929, 650.
9 Ibid., 650.
10 Ibid., 650-51. On the manifold meaning of Induction and its uses in Medieval
philosophy, see Julius R. Weinberg, “Historical Remarks on Some Medieval Views
of Induction,” in his Abstraction, Relation and Induction: Three Essays in the History of
Thought, (Madison & Milwaukee: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1965), 121-53.
Here one finds evidence that Medieval authors use different forms of inductive
argument based on the forms of argument inherited from Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics,
including some that seem to be like Mill’s Method of Agreement. Yet, notwithstand­
ing the subtlety of formal argument in both Scotus and Ockham, it should not be
thought that these thinkers, including Roger Bacon, have the version of inductive
argument as formulated by Francis Bacon. See Weinberg, p. 153. There are antici­
pations of this in medieval authors but not this precise formulation.
11 Lynn Thorndike, “Roger Bacon and Experimental M ethod. . 275.
12 Ibid.., A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 666.
 282 JEREMIAH HACKETT
“a promulgation of the phrase ‘experimental science.’ ”13 George Sarton
followed Thorndike in arguing that Bacon did not suceed in separat­
ing Science and Magic. Neveretheless, he accepted what he called
“the essential soundness of his (Bacon’s) experimental point of view,”
and claimed that Bacon’s greatest claim to fame was “his vindication
of the experimental spirit.” He added:
He was not himself an experimenter any more than he was a mathema­
tician, but he clearly saw— better than anybody else in his time— that
without experimentation and without mathematics, natural philosophy
is very soon reduced to verbiage.14
In the post-World War II period, Stewart C. Easton in his Roger
Bacon and the Search for a Universal Science drew attention to the Secretum
secretorum as a catalyst for Bacon’s experimental ideas.15
In his study Robert Grosseteste and the Origins of Experimental Science,
1200-1700, A.C. Crombie opened up a new chapter in the study of
both medieval science in general and of the experimental method of
Roger Bacon. He challenged the common approach of scholars such
as Duhem, Carton, and Thorndike. In Crombie’s view, Bacon based
his idea of an experimental science on an explicit notion of a true
scientific method. This more rational scientific method was based on
the applications by Bacon of Robert Grosseteste’s commentary on
the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle. Crombie went a step further stating:
The thesis of this book is that the modem, systematic understanding of
at least the qualitative aspects of this method was created by the philoso­
phers of the West in the thirteenth century. It was they who trans­
formed the Greek geometrical Method into the experimental science
of the modem world.16
According to Crombie, both Grosseteste and Bacon believed that
“Scientific knowledge, properly speaking, was thus, demonstrative
knowledge of things through causes, and its instmment was the demon­
strative syllogism.”17 In Crombie’s considered view, “the writer who
13 Ibid., “Roger Bacon and Experimental Method .. 283.
14 George Sarton, Introduction to the History o f Science, II, pt. 2, Baltimore, 1931,
953. See also 959.
15 Stewart C. Easton, Roger Bacon and his Search for a Universal Science, New York,
1952. See 75-77, 176.
16 A.C. Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and the Origins o f Experimental Science, 1200-1700,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953, 1.
17 Ibid., 155-6. For a new consideration of demonstration in Grosseteste’s meth-
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTAUS 283
most thoroughly grasped, and who most elaborately developed
Grosseteste’s attitude to the nature and theory of science was Roger
Bacon. . . .”18 Crombie looked to Bacon’s theory of the Rainbow in
Opus maius, part six, as the crucial illustration of a theory of experi­
ment which had been formulated by Grosseteste in his Commentary on
the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle. He was certainly correct in his view
that Bacon in both Opus maius, parts five and six, had Grosseteste’s
commentary in mind. Thus, he did show that there is a definite kind
of Scientific Method involved in Bacon’s works. This forced scholars
to reconsider Duhem’s thesis of a pure empiricism in Bacon.
Crombie’s account, however, raised two issues. First, despite his
care in the use of such terms as “induction” and “falsification”, the
impression was given that Bacon was really a Popperian. And sec­
ond, by an omission of the “occult” aspects of Bacon’s thought, one
got the impression that Bacon was more modern than he is. Paolo
Rossi commented that “. . . one cannot ignore, on the other hand
certain basic opinions by which Bacon showed himself to be a man
of his time, heir to the hermetic tradition.”19
More recent research has focused on Bacon’s account of the rain­
bow.2.0 And there have been some studies of the general nature of
his experimental method.21 In the present volume, studies of Bacon’s
alchemy and medicine assist in gaining a more secure knowledge of
Bacon’s contributions in these fields.22 And the study of the Secretum
secretorum allows one to see the uses of Scientia experimentalis in Roger
Bacon.23*
odology, see Em an McMullen, The Inference that Makes Science, Marquette University
Press, 1992 (Aquinas lecture 1992).
18 Ibid., 139.
19 Paolo Rossi, Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science, Chicago (Midway reprint), 1978,
28. See 239, n. 99.
20 Carl B. Boyer, The Rainbow: From Myth to Mathematics, New York: Thomas Yoseloff,
1959, 111-124; William A. Wallace, O.P., The Scientific Methodology of Theodoric of
Freiberg, Freibourg, Switzerland: University Press, 1959, 174-226; David C. Lindberg,
“Roger Bacon’s Theory of the Rainbow: Progress or Regress,” Isis 57 (1966), 236-
49. See David C. Lindberg, Studies in the History of Medieval Optics (London: Variorum
Reprints), 1983 for a selection of papers on Bacon’s science.
21 N.W. Fisher and Sabetai Unguru, “Experimental Science and Mathematics,”
Traditio 27 (1971), 353-78; Malgorzata Frankowska, Scientia wujeciu Rogera Bacona,
Warsaw: I.H.S.T. of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Technology, Monographs,
Vol. 55, 1969; English trs. Science as Interpreted by Roger Bacon, trs. Ziemislaw Zienkiewicz,
(Warsaw: Central Institute for Scientific Technical and Economic Information, 1971).
22 See papers by Faye Getz and William Newman in present volume.
23 See Steven J. Williams, “Roger Bacon and His Edition of the Pseudo-Aristotelian
Secretum secretorum, Speculum 69 (1994), 57-73.
284 JEREMIAH HAGKETT
In this account I will attempt to interpret Bacon’s Scientia experimentalis
on the basis of his texts and in the light of our current knowledge
of Bacon and his contemporaries. I will look at the following issues:
(1) What were his Sources? (2) the relation of the Scientia experimentalis
{Opus maius, part six) to the Perspectiva {Opus maius, part five) (3) the
source for a “new” use of Scientia experimentalis (4) the distinction
between Argumentum and Experimentum (5) The definition of Experi­
ence and the need for an Experimental Science (6) The Three Pre­
rogatives of this science in detail (7) The uses of this science (8) Bacon
and Experiment.
2. Bacon’s Scientia experimentalis: a Reconsideration
(1) The sources o f Bacon’s science
It would be no exaggeration to state that Bacon had access to all the
available knowledge from Greek and Arabic sources which a Medi­
eval author after 1260 could use. Here, a comparison with Robert
Grosseteste is instructive. Whereas the latter had access to some ancient
work on perspectiva and on the rainbow {Be iride), Roger Bacon had
access to most of the Greek material on optics, especially Ptolemy
and Pseudo-Ptolemy, and he had mastered the Be aspectibus of Ibn
al-Haytham (Alhacen). In my view, this latter work enabled Bacon
to extend an understanding of the optics of the rainbow which he
had inherited from Anstotle. And it allowed him to make some adjust­
ments to the material which he had found in Seneca. The primary
sources for the introduction to Opus maius, part six are Aristotle and
Euclid. For his account of experience, he relies on Pseudo-Ptolemy,
Centiloquium?4 His account of a phenomenology of moral and reli­
gious experience is based on traditional Jewish, Arabic and Christain
sources.2425*The two basic texts for the doctrine of the Rainbow were
24 On the whole issue of the Pseudo-Ptolemaic Centiloquium, see above. For the
idea of Bacon’s experimental science, this text must be read in the context of other
related works on experience and experimentum. See the works of Raoul Carton for a
complete list of all references to experience in Bacon.
25 On the issue of moral and religious experience, Bacon is drawing on traditonal
Neoplatonic ideas as mediated in Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions. See espe­
cially the influence of al-Ghazali here and of the main elements of the mystical path
of knowledge. It is important to note that Bacon holds the view that moral wareness
and religious devotion are not unconnected with the scientific search for truth. In
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTALIS 285
Aristotle’s Meteorologica and Seneca’s Maturates quaestiones. These sources
are qualified by material from ibn al-Haytham and from Robert
Grosseteste.
The second prerogative of experimental science, knowledge gained
by experience with instruments and with medicine draws on Ptolemy’s
Almagest, Al-Betrugi, Aristotle, Galen, Haly Abbas, the Secretum secretorum,
Pliny, Avicenna. The third prerogative on the Prognostication of the
future draws on Ptolemy, Almagestum pawum {Be dispositione spherae).26
The section on applied science draws on the Secretum secretorum as
well as on Pliny.
(2) The status of a science o f the rainbow and a Scientia experimentalis
Already in the work of Aristotle, there is considerable difficulty con­
cerning the name of that science to which the science of the rainbow
is subordinated. Is it part of Physical Does it involve going beyond a
pure demonstrative science in the sense of having to deal with opin­
ion, conjecture and with a semiotics?27* And in the case of strict
demonstration, is there a demonstrative science of the “fact” {quia) as
there* is for the “reason for the fact” {Propter quid)? How does the
study of the experimental topics in Opus maius, part six relate to
Bacon’s account this is grounded in the notion of a history of truth and an Augus-
tinian doctrine of illumination. That moral character and scientific insight was related
in the educational process, see Therese-Anne Druart, “Al-Kindi’s Ethics,” Review of
Metaphysics 47 (December 1993), 329-357. This is instructive since Bacon drew heavily
on Al-Kindi’s De radiis, De aspectibus, and knew his Theorica artium Magicarum.
26 Almagestum pawum (De dispositione spherae) or Almagesti minoris libri VI is the Intro­
duction to the Almagest which is based on Geminus’ Introduction to the Phenomena. For
the medieval Latin MSS, see Lynn Thorndike and Pearl Kibre, A Catalogue of Incipits
of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin, Cambridge, Mass., 1963, 442. Latin translation
from Arabic by Gerard of Cremona. See Germaine Aujac, ed. and trs., Geminos.
Introduction aux Phenomenes, Paris, 1975.
27 Jacques Brunschwig, “Aristote et le statut epistemologique de le theorie de l’arc-
en-ciel,” in Lloyd P. Gerson, ed. Graceful Reason: Essays in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy
Presented to Joseph Owens, CSSR. Papers in Medieval Studies 4, Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1983, 115-34; On the need to examine endoxa in
Aristotle’s account of Meteorological phenomena, see Cynthia A. Freeland, “Scientific
Explanation and Empirical Data in Aristotle’s Meteorology,” Oxford Studies in Ancient
Philosophy, ed. Julia Annas, Vol. VIII, 1990, 67-102. This latter need has much
implication for Roger Bacon’s treatment of meteorological phenomena. That is, it is
in Opus maius, part three that he provides a theory of signs and in parts four and
six, an application of a theory of signs to issues in science. Thus, in Bacon’s science,
one is not dealing with a pure deductive demonstrative science alone. As will be
apparent from the texts, the latter is much qualified by a concern for Endoxa and
for signs.
 286 JEREMIAH HACKETT
Perspectiva in Opus maius, part five. Grosseteste had addressed the topic
in his Commentary on the Posterior Analytics,28
In the subaltemation of the sciences in Aristotle, the middle sciences
(scientiae media) such as optics, harmonics and astronomy were neither
purely mathematical nor purely physical. In the case of optics, geom­
etry is the proper mode of demonstration. Thus, knowledge of “the
reason for the fact” (propter quid) was provided by Geometry, while
knowledge of “the fact” was given by the subalternated science. In
this case, optics as the science of radiant lines, angles and figures
provided a knowledge of the “fact”. In Bacon’s view as in that of
Grosseteste, geometry provided the mathematical reason for the fact.
But luminous agency as well as physio-psychological activity had to
be accounted for.
The higher science, geometry, therefore accounted for one aspect
of the whole phenomenon. One still had need of physical and psy­
chological sciences.
Roger Bacon inherited this position from Grosseteste. However, in
Opus maius, part six, concerning the rainbow, he notes:
The Natural Philosopher (Aristotle) discusses these phenomena, and the
writer on Perspective (Ibn al-Haytham) has much to add pertaining to
the moder of vision that is necessary in this case. But neither Aristotle
nor Avicenna in their Natural Histories has given us a knowledge of phe­
nomena of this kind, nor has Seneca, who composed a special book on
them. But Experimental Science gives an account of these phenomena.29
Bacon it would seem not merely subordinates the science of radiant
lines (perspectwa) to Geometry; he also emphasises that traditional Natu­
ral Philosophy and Perspectiva do not go far enough in investigating
the physical phenomena themselves. Thus, the Scientia experimentalis
28 Robert Grosseteste, Commentarium in Posteriorum Analyticomm Libros, ed. Pietro Rossi,
Firenze: Leo S. Olshki, 1981 (Corpus Philosophorum Medii Aevi, II); De iride, ed.
Ludwig Baur, Die Philosophischen Werke des Robert Grosseteste, Munster: Aschendorff,
1912. See William A. Wallace, Causality and Scientific Explanation, Vol. I: Mediaeval and
Early Modem Science (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1972), 27-47;
James A. Weisheipl, The Development of Physical Theory in the Middle Ages (Ann Arbor:
The University of Michigan Press, 1971), 61; W.R. Laird, The Scientiae Mediae in
Commentaries on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (University of Toronto Ph.D., 1983) and
Ibid., “Robert Grosseteste and the subaltemate sciences,” Traditio, xliii (1987), 147-
69 for an account of the subordination of the sciences and for the idea of a scientia
media (middle science), which is intermediate between mathematics and the science
of nature.
29 Opus maius, part six, ed. Bridges, 173. I am preparing a critical edition of this text.
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTALIS 287
goes one step beyond these sciences and demands a more intensive
investigation of the phenomena.
Nevertheless, the treatment of the rainbow and related phenom­
ena in Opus maius, part six, are properly located as phenomena which
can be studied by means of perspectiva, the science of radiant lines,
angles and figures, and consequently come after the treatment of
Perspectiva.
(3) The sources for the term Scientia experimentalis
Already in Grosseteste’s Commentary on the Posterior Analytics, one finds
a clear analysis of the notion of experimentum.30 Posterior Analytics II, 19
and related Aristotelian texts are important here. “From sense comes
memory, and from the repetition of many memories an experimentum
and from the experience (ex experiment) the universal which is apart
from the particular. Yet the universal is not separate from the par­
ticular, but is the same as them, of art that is and the science of
principles.”31 For Grosseteste, there is no problem for incomplex truths,
but in the case of “experimental universals which are complex
(universalia complexa experimentalia), verification is needed.” The actual
grasp of the experimental universal is twofold. First, one has to formu­
late a hypothesis and a possible cause. This induction from experi­
ence brings the mind to the formulation of a true proposition whose
truth must be tested. The testing comes through or by means of
experience or more properly an experimentum. This involves a collatio,
a gathering together which is the work of reasonable intelligence and
not just of instinct alone.
The central issue then concerns the extent to which Experimentum
in Grosseteste does or does not differ from the Aristotelian empeiria,
and in what manner Grosseteste does anticipate modern views.
Crombie’s thesis is simply that the qualitative model of a science is
set out by Grosseteste. He does not argue that Grosseteste uses the
quantitative methods of post-Cartesian science.32
30 Ed. cit., 403-8.
31 Ibid., 404—5.
32 See E. Serene, “Robert Grosseteste on Induction and Demonstrative Science,”
Synthese 40 (1979), 97-115; Steven P. Marrone, William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste:
New Ideas of Truth in the Early Thirteenth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1983); Ibid., “Robert Grosseteste on the Certitude of Induction,” in L ’Homme
et son Unvvers au Moyen Age, ed. Christian Wenin, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1986, Vol. II,
 288 JEREMIAH HACKETT
Perhaps, at this point, it would be useful to note the re-currence
in Roger Bacon of sources found in Grosseteste for experimenta which
are non-Aristotelian. This will indicate the extent to which both
Grosseteste and Bacon are in debt to “books” on ancient science
and not only to some experimentation on their own part.
Already in Grosseteste one notices a strong connection between
astronomy, optics and experientia. In De iride, he states “The visual
rays penetrating through several transparent substances of diverse
natures is refracted at their junctions. . . .” This is revealed by that
experiment in the book De speculis. This leads Grosseteste to a consid­
eration of the Law of Refraction: that the angle of refraction equals
half of the angle of incidence. Bruce C. Eastwood has seriously ques­
tioned the “experimental” nature of this proof.33 And he is correct in
this. Grosseteste and Bacon in turn simply took the geometry from
Ancient Authors, especially Ptolemy and Ibn al-Haytham. The same
is the case with references to other experimenta. For example, in De
sphera, De cometis and elsewhere. In De natura locorum, he criticises Ps.
Aristotle and Averroes on the basis of “the experiments and reasons
of Aristotle, Ptolemy and other authors.”3435In De cometis, he uses the
Ps. Ptolemy, Centiloquium. He takes his theory of the tides from Abu
Ma'shar. And a reference to heat in the tropics is taken from the
Ps. Ptolemy, De dispositione spherae?b In general, both Grosseteste and
481-488. In the former work, Marrone argues “It is important to remember that
Grosseteste held that the principles of science are verified by experiment, but not the
conclusions (my italics). Scientific reasoning per se was deductive, concerned with formal,
logical inference of conclusions from certain principles.” (p. 276, n. 158). See p. 273:
W hat is more he meant by “experiment” what we mean by it today, a controlled
procedure intended to verily a scientific hypothesis. Such a notion is not found in
Aristotle, and Grosseteste probably came upon the idea in the works of Arabic
science, etc.
33 Bruce C. Eastwood, “Grosseteste’s ‘Quantitative’ Law of Refraction: A Chap­
ter in the History of Experimental Science,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 28 (1967),
403-415; see also Ibid., Astronomy and Optics from Pliny to Descartes: Texts, Diagrams and
Conceptual Structures, Aldershot: Variorum reprints, 1989.
34 Robert Grosseteste, Die Philosophische Werke, ed. cit., 66.
35 See Jeremiah Hackett, “Scientia experimentalis: From Robert Grosseteste to
Roger Bacon,” in James McEvoy, ed., Robert Grosseteste: Mew Perspectives on His Thought
and Scholarship, Dordrecht, 1995 (Instrumenta Patristica, XXVII), 89-120; See for
Grosseteste on experientia and experimentalis, 109-113. One should note Grosseteste’s
remark to the effect that not only did he and his contemporaries find experimenta
in books, but they sought their own experimenta: “Et hoc plus consonat ei quod
invenimus per experimentum nostri temporis de antecessione solsticii.” (Steele, Computus
correctorius, 215) [For Grosseteste’s Computus, see Jennifer Moreton “Robert Grosseteste
and the Calendar,” in James McEvoy ed. cit:, See also Jennifer Moreton, “Before
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTALIS 289
Bacon take over a whole “rhetoric” of experientia-experimentum from
the Introductorium maius of Abu Ma'shar.36
As we noted in the chapter on Astronomy and Astrology, Roger
Bacon takes over and uses many of these same sources for the termi­
nology of Scientia experimentalis. There is, however, one new element
in Roger Bacon which gives a greater scientific precision to his use
of the term.
Bacon’s debt to Ibn al-Haytham: Experientia, experimentum (ictibar)
It is the considered view of A.I. Sabra that Ibn al-Haytham intro­
duced a “new” concept of experiment into the medieval debates.
That is, he introduced a concept of experiment was different in kind
from the notion of experience (empeiria) found in Aristotle. The Arabic
word itibar is translated in Latin by experimentatio and its cognates.
Due to the influence of Ptolemy’s Almagest the notion of a practical
test in Astronomy brought about an ideal of the experimental test.
This was due naturally to the need for accurate comparisons with
Tables and with correct observations. A.I. Sabra notes that a change
in the meaning of the Term was bound to happen when ictibar was
transferred to an experimental discipline like Optics. He states:
Testing remains as a form of proof, but a proof in which physical
properties were directly investigated, sometimes with the aid of an
experimental apparatus especially designed for the purpose. And the
aim of the proof was to bring certainty or exactness and precision to
an observation by subjecting it to an artificial situation in which con­
ditions could be varied. To operate explicitly with such a distinct concept
of experimental proof while regularly attaching it to a definite set of
terms (i'tibar and its cognates), and thus dissociating it from the idea of
accumulated experience or empeiria, was a significant conceptual develop­
ment in the history o f experimental science. It remains true, however,
that the confirmatory experiments in I.H.’s Optics differ in at least one
respect from the discovery experiments o f seventeenth-century optics: they
do not reveal new properties, such as diffraction, double refraction or
dispersion of light; and although some of them are supported in a
remarkable way by geometrical arguments (e.g. I, 3 [48-67]), they lack
measurement.37
Grosseteste: Roger of Hereford and Calendar Reform in 11th and 12th Century
England,” Isis, 86, 4 (Dec. 1995), 562-86.
36 Abu Ma'shar, Introductorium maius. Introduction. A critical edition of this work
by Richard Lemay has been published from the Oriental Institute, Naples, for 1997.
37 A.I. Sabra, The Optics of Ibn al-Haytham: Books I—III On Direct Vision, Vol. II,
 290 JEREMIAH HACKETT
It is clear then from both Opus maius, part five and six, that Roger
Bacon has pushed the notion of an experimental science beyond the
empeiria of Aristode. He is actively seeking the kind of experimental
test which Ibn al-Haytham outlines in his Optics. In this respect, it is
well to note that in a recent study, A.C. Crombie indicates that Bacon
in his Questions On the First Philosophy of Aristotle (ca. 1240’s) was already
grappling with this problem.*38 In Crombie’s interpretation, Bacon has
already moved the issue of experiment away from the treatment of
the experimental universal in Grosseteste and onto the issue of a
practical test.39 One can state then that quite a significant advance
occurs in Bacon’s appropriation of the Optics of Ibn al-Haytham and
its application to issues concerning the secondary stars, that is, to the
rainbow, halo and related phenomena. One will notice too that Bacon
sees the need for much more “particular” experiments in order to
discover the structure of these phenomena in greater detail.
(4) Argumentum and Experimentum: Opus maius, six, Ch. 1
Bacon presents this distinction as follows: “For there are two modes
of acquiring knowledge, namely, by reasoning and by experience. Rea­
soning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion cer­
tain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest in the
intuition of the truth (in intuitu veritatis), unless the mind discovers it
by the path of Experience. Since many have arguments concerning
London: The Warburg Institute, University of London, 1989, 18-19. See G. Federici
Vescovini, Studi sulla perspectiva medievale, (Turin, 1965); Ibid., art. cit. below; David C.
Iindberg, Theories of Visionfrom Al-Kindi to Kepler, (Chicago & London: The University
of Chicago Press, 1976). Professor Sabra is correct in stating that the medieval
experiments did not reveal “new” properties such as diffraction etc., but does this
not beg another question? In the middle ages, in both Arabic and Latin science, the
stage was reached where experimental a device— Ibn al-Haytham’s refraction
instrument was used to gain “new” knowledge of the basics of Refraction. That had
to come first. But in its day, that was experiment in the service of discovery of new
knowledge. This applies too to Witelo’s use of such an instrument. See S. Unguru
below. Further, more knowledge of Medieval Calculation and Mathematics will extend
our awareness of just how much measurement was used by these experiments.
38 A.C. Crombie, Styles of Scientific Thinking in the European Tradition: The History
o f Argument and Explanation especially in the Mathematical and Biomedical Sciences and Arts,
Vol. I, London: Duckworth, 1994, 335-7. See also Jeremiah Hackett, “Scientia
experimentalis: From Robert Grosseteste to Roger Bacon,” 107-109.
39 A.C. Crombie, Styles of Scientific Thinking, Vol. I, 337: Here Bacon subdy moved
the meaning of experimentum from the context of Aristotle’s psychology of knowledge
acquired through the senses to that of the experimental practical test.
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTALIS 291
what can be known, yet because they lack experience they neglect
the arguments and neither avoid what is harmful nor follow what is
good.”40 Bacon then gives the example of a person who has never
seen a fire. Such a person may have a notion of a fire but will not
avoid one. He then turns to Mathematics and provides an example
from Euclid to which he then attaches some important texts from
Aristotle. It is important to look at these texts.
Bacon’s use of Euclid, I, prop, i: that an equilateral triangle can be
constructed with any given line segment as a base, is intended as
evidence for his thesis that in certain kinds of knowledge experience is
an absolute requirement. While this example will suggest the case of
the Meno as outlined in Posterior Analytics I, Bacon seems to be stating
that in Geometry, a person will not have certainty unless there is an
actual intuition of the spatial lines.41 Is he simply stating that one
needs a drawing as a visual aid? O r is something more significant
being implied? He seems to be stating that in the case of mathemat­
ics, his great example of certified proof, logic alone is not sufficient.
Without the combination of the two ways of knowledge, argumentum
and experimentum, verified knowledge is not to be had. Here, Bacon
seems, to be stating that geometrical reasoning cannot proceed “ana­
lytically” according to logical concepts alone. The pure analysis of
the concept of the properties of lines and angles will not yield new
knowledge. Rather the seeing or intuition of the triangle will lead to
clear inferential knowledge guided by an experiential intuition.
When one looks at the Aristotelian references, one notices certain
oddities. He seems to be not merely repeating Aristotle’s words, but
40 Opus maius, part six, Bridges, ed. 167.
41 Bacon’s discussion here is clearly based on Aristotole’s Posterior Analytics, book
one. The issue at stake: whether geometrical lines and angles are to be understood
in a purely analytical manner or whether some form of intuition is involved in the
construction of the proofs does go back to Aristotle. Thus, Bacon must not be inter­
preted here as though he is following Plato in the Meno. In Aristode, one must intuit
the existence and nature of those straight lines that are presupposed by geometrical
proof. See Thomas V. Upton, “Aristode on Hypothesis and the Unhypothesized First
Principle,” Review of Metaphysics 39 (Dec. 1985), 283-301. See p. 285, n. 5: What
must be stressed is that the upward movement of thought in geometrical analysis is
intuitive and not (always) through necessary inference, etc. See also p. 294.
This Euclidian example and related ones play a major role in the philosophy of
geometry and epistemology. For a discussion of this issue with K ant’s use of the
same examples as Bacon, see Michael Friedman, Kant and the Exact Sciences, Cam­
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992, 55-93. I am not claiming that Bacon’s
position and that of Kant are the same, but I do wish to argue that both offer a
criticism of a pure analytic theory of geometrical knowledge.
 292 JEREMIAH HACKETT
rather to be changing their meaning. First, to the remark in Posterior
Analytics 7 lb 16-20: “By demonstration I mean a syllogism produc­
tive of syllogistic knowledge . . he adds: “This is to be understood
as if the demonstration were accompanied by the appropriate expe­
rience, and not of bare demonstrative proof.”42 The difficulty here
is that in strict Aristotelian scientific inference, one does not need a
further “looking at” the phenomenon. The syllogism itself yields a
necessary conclusion.
Second, in Metaphysica 981a23-981b9 concerning the superiority
of art to experience, and the superiority of the artist and wise person
to the person of experience. The latter only know the singular fact;
the former know the reason for the fact. Bacon adds: “But I am
speaking about the man who knows the reason and the cause through
experience [Per experientiam).”434While Aristode does allow for knowl­
edge via experience in the case of productive effects, this is not the
case with pure scientific knowledge. Bacon develops this argument at
length in the Communia mathematical Third, he cites the example of
the person of intuition and gives a reference to Kicomachean Ethics,
Book Six.4546
It is clear from the Communia mathematica that Bacon is making a
critique of pure Syllogistic reasoning. He is stating that in the case of
mathematical demonstration, the mind will not find the truth unless
the examples in geometry are generated. And he adds: “Again, Knowl­
edge per experientiam is better than per argumentum” and he cites Ibn
al-Haytham as a model for this cognitio per experientiam.^
Therefore, Roger Bacon is not simply repeating Aristotelian empeiria.
He is supplementing Aristotle’s account of scientific knowledge with
accounts of science taken from many sources, including the Pseudony­
42 Analytka posteriora, liber primus, 71al-73a25, [A.L., IV, 1-4], ed. L. Minio-Paluello
and Bernard G. Dod, 1968; Opus maius, ed. cit., 168; See also Roger Bacon, Tractatus
de experientia in communi, ed. Jeremiah Hackett, in The Meaning o f Experimental Science
(Scientia Experimental) in the Philosophy of Roger Bacon, 273-4 (Toronto Ph.D., 1983)
43 Metaphysica 981a23-981b9: Opus maius, part six, ed. Bridges, 168: Q uod etiam
dicit primo Metaphysicae, quod habentes rationem et causam sunt superiores expertis,
loquitur de expertis qui solum noscunt nudam veritatem sine causa. Sed hie loquor
de experto, qui rationem et causam novit per experientiam.
44 Communia mathematica, ed. Steele, 121-4 (Capitulum quintum de demonstratione
per experientiam).
45 Ethica nicomachea 41al0-41a20: While Aristotle explicitly refers to intuitive Reason
as the means of recognizing Principles, Bacon extends the notion of intuition to all
kinds of intuitive experience.
46 Communia mathematica, ed. cit., 124.
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTALIS 293
mous Ptolemaic sources, Abu M a'shar and other writers on Astron-
omy/Astrology, Ptolemy himself, and especially from Ibn al-Haytham.
(5) The definition of Experimental Science
Bacon defines experience as follows:
Experience is two-fold. One kind is gained through our external senses,
and in this manner we gain experiences of things in the heavens by
means of instruments in astronomy. We experience things on earth prima­
rily by means o f vision, and by the testimony of scientists who have had
authentic experiences of nature. . . . This experience is human and philosophical as
far as man can act according to the grace given him. But this experience
is not sufficient because it does not give full testimony about corporeal
things due to its difficulty, and it does not touch on spiritual matters.
It is necessary, therefore, that the intellect of man be helped in another
manner, and for this reason, the holy patriarchs and prophets, who
first gave the sciences to the world, received illumination within and
were not dependent on the senses alone . . . as Ptolemy (sic! Pseudo-
Ptolemy) states in the Centiloquium that there are two roads by which
we arrive at knowledge of facts: one through the experience of Phi­
losophy (and science) and the other through divine inspiration, which
is- far better, as he states.47
We see here that Bacon is not just indebted to Ibn al-Haytham. In
this passage, he clearly distinguishes philosophical/scientific knowl­
edge gained by both instruments and by human vision from a kind
of inspired knowledge. Here he is dependent on the Augustinian Doc­
trine of Divine Illumination which he supplements with the Ps.
Ptolemy, Centiloquiumf8 This is the “illuminism” which scholars have
found difficult in Bacon’s science. However, it does fit in with his
overall theory of truth in Opus maius, part two, and it does lead to a
greater emphasis on personal experiential insight over mere “book”
knowledge.49
In what follows, Bacon presents a Medieval account of the structure
47 Opus maius, part six, ed. cit. 169-70. See Jeremiah Hackett, Tractatus de experientia,
ed. cit., 281-282.
48 Pseudo-Ptolemy, Centiloquium, Verbum I, commentary.
49 James A. Weisheipl, “Science in the Thirteenth Century,” in J.I. Catto, The
Early Oxford Schools, ed. cit., suggested that “The first difficulty seems to lie in such
Latin terms as experimentum, experimentator, experientia and the like as used by Grosseteste,
Roger Bacon, Albert the Great, Bartholomaeus Anglicus and others in the thir­
teenth century.” M odem readers sometimes take these words to refer to controlled
laboratory procedures, thus misunderstanding the main distinction intended by these
 294 JEREMIAH HACKETT
of internal knowledge especially in terms of the moral virtues and in
terms of religious experience. This version follows a standard Fran­
ciscan account.50 And it indicates a concern with an internal Phenome­
nology of moral experience. Further, Bacon is stating that there are
experiences which are quite real but which cannot be “reduced” to
natural science. This latter account becomes even more important
when Bacon presents his account of Science in chapter 2.
He states:
Since this E xperim ental Science is wholly unknown to the rank and file of
university Students, I am therefore unable to convince people o f its utility
unless a t the sam e tim e I disclose its excellence an d its p ro p e r m e an ­
ing. This science alone, therefore, Knows how to test perfectly what can be done
by Nature, what by the effort of Art, what by Trickery, what the Incantations,
Conjurations, Invocations, Deprecations, and Sacrifices that belong to Mafic mean
and dream of, and what is in them, so that all falsity may be removed and the
Truth alone of Art and Nature may be retained. T h is science alone teaches us
how to view the m ad acts o f m agicians, th a t they m ay n o t be accepted
b u t rejected, ju s t as Logic considers sophistical reasoning.51
authors. To avoid error it is best to translate experimentum and its cognates as
“personal experience” and its cognates. The point is that there is a big difference
between knowing a truth solely from books (authority) and knowing the same truth
by personal experience, as between reading about Rainbows in Aristotle’s Meteorologica
and seeing a rainbow in the sky. The contrast is between book-learning alone and
books complemented by personal experience. The emphasis was neither a call to
controlled experimentation nor a rejection of reason and book-learning. Roger Bacon
singled out the “Method” of Grosseteste, who he said, “took no notice at all of
Aristotle’s books and their methods (vim eorum) but from his own experience (per
experientiam propriam) and from other writers and from other sciences he found out
and wrote more than a hundred thousand times as many things as are discussed in
Aristotle’s books or as could be taken from the perverse translations of the same.” etc.
See comment on the above passage in Graziella Federici Vescovini, “La Fortune
De L’Optique D ’Ibn Al-Haitham”, art. cit., 227: Neanmoins, Bacon est tres influence
par la doctrine d’Alhazen de l’experience comme observation, vision sensible: c’est-
a-dire que Bacon developpe sa theorie de la perspective comme science experimentale,
scientia experimentalis, sur le fondement de la doctrine de la vision optique d’Alhazen;
mais il est spiritualiste et dualiste et pour cela il subordonne la science experimentale
exterieure, c’est-a-dire sa perspective, a la vision spirituelle, divine, interieure. En
d’autres mots, la connaissance sensible de la perspective, la scientia experimentalis exte­
rior, est inferieure a la science de la vision interieure.. . . As she correctly notes,
Bacon interprets Ibn al-Haytham’s account of experiential knowledge in the light of
Avicenna’s philosophy. One might add here that the dominating text behind this
interpretation is the De Anima of Aristotle. Thus, Bacon is not a physicalist. He
should be seen as one attempts to interpret sensible knowledge in the light of Augus­
tine, Avicenna and Aristode.
50 See Ewart C. Cousins, Bonaxienture and the Coincidence of Opposites, (Chicago: The
Franciscan Herald Press, 1978) for this topic in Bonaventure.
51 Opus maius, ed. cit., 172
295
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTALIS
This one paragraph has much significance for Bacon’s project of a
Scientia experimentalis. First, one notes that it is his goal to devise a
method in the practical and speculative sciences, which in a manner,
analogous to Logic will distinguish between the fraud of Magicians
and the Truth of Art and Science. The case of the Rainbow and
related phenomena is presented as an example of how to achieve
this real scientific knowledge. It is also clear that Bacon has the
polemical goal of convincing the Pope that a new scientific method
is needed in the Universities of the Latin West. Lynn Thorndike was
correct in recognizing that the origins of Experimental Science in
the West was tied to the issue of Magic. Perhaps, he was too severe
on Bacon in regard to Magic. Bacon is quite clear that if one is to
distinguish between Science and Magic, the scientist must know both
areas. When this section of the Opus maius is read with the Epistola de
secretis operibus et de militate Magiae and related works, one sees that
Bacon set out a comprehensive task for scientific knowledge and for
the philosopher-scientist.5253*
(6) Bacon presents three prerogatives or tasks for this Scientific Method
(1) It investigates by experiment the notable conclusions of all the other
speculative sciences. “For the other sciences know how to discover their
principles by reasoning drawn from Principles discovered (by experi­
ence). But if they should have a Particular and Complete Experience of
their own Conclusions, thy must have it with the aid of this noble Science.”33
52 Epistola de secretis operibus. .., Brewer ed. dt. This means that Bacon sees a task
of the experimenter to be one of separating those books and works which are true
SCIENCE and ART from those which are pure MAGIC. This was the task under­
taken by the author of the Speculum astronomiae. Pierre Mandonnet had a strong belief
that Bacon was the author of this work, but the consensus of the Scholarship holds
that Albertus Magnus is the author. See Paola Zambelli, The Speculum Astronomiae and
its Enigma: Astrohgy, Theology and Science in Albertus Magnus and his Contemporaries, Dordrecht-
Boston-London, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992 (Boston Studies in the Philoso­
phy of Science, Volume 135). Unlike the Speculum astronomiae, which looks to one to
determine this issue, Bacon leaves it up to the personal judgment of each qualified
experimenter. O n new work on Magic in the Middle Ages, see Richard Kieckhefer,
Mafic in the Middle Ages, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, reprint 1992).
53 Opus maius, part six, ed. cit., 172-3. The Discovery of the principles of a science
is of course discussed by Aristotle in Posterior Analytics, II, 19. This kind of discovery
of the Principles of a science is to be carefully distinguished from the notion of
discovery in the experimental sciences. Indeed, the word “induction” is so over-determined
as to be misleading.
 296
JEREMIAH HACKETT
(2) Theoretical knowledge in science is not the only way. Independ-
endy, experience can yield new Instruments and new data. He gives
the following as examples: experiments with Magnetism, the Armillary
sphere, Cures in Medicine, development in Alchemy. It should be
noted that in the Communia mathematica, Bacon talks about instruments.
He states that Practical Geometry is concerned with the building of
instruments. These instruments of Experimental Science include the
Astrolabe, Mirrors and Instruments of War.54
(3) Experimental science is concerned with knowledge of the future.
Here, Bacon touches on the relation of Astronomy/astrology to the
scientia experimentalis. He refers to the Almagestum parvum and notes that
“this is the pathway of experiment, which follows the course of nature,
to which many philosophers who are believers are turning. . . .”55
This whole matter is difficult. Bacon’s comments are short. He seems
to think that there is a short cut around the normal practice of
Astronomy/Astrology. That is, astronomical instruments, verified tables
and good computations are hard to find, and the use of instruments
is difficult. But this science (experimental science) can give an account
of the influence of the heavenly bodies (judicial astrology) without
the help of the ordinary Astronomy/Astrology. Bacon may have been
thinking of instant intuition or inspiration. This is, perhaps, the most
unsatisfactory aspect of Opus maius, part six. And it must be read in
the light of the polemic on the deterministic consequences of astrology
in Opus maius, part four.
The remaining part of Opus maius, part six has to do with the appli­
cations of science in statecraft and we will treat it at the end of this
paper. In what follows, I will simply give a presentation of the status
of Bacon’s presentation of the Rainbow as a model of a Scientia
experimentalis, and give a brief treatment of the second prerogative on
experience as a source of scientific knowledge. I will then present the
conclusion on the applications of science, and end with some remarks
on Bacon’s science in relation to early modern experimental science.
54 Ibid., 202-22; Communia mathematica, 44-47.
55 Ibid., 215-6; See Tractatus de experientia, ed. cit., 336-41.
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTALIS 297
Roger Bacon on the Rainbow
We should begin by asking “why did Bacon concern himself with
the questions of the Rainbow in 1266?” At this time, the Meteorologica
of Aristotle and the Commentary by Alexander of Aphrodisias were
being discussed in the Faculty of Arts.56 It is unfortunate that commen­
tary by both Siger of Brabant and Thomas Aquinas are not extant
for the section on the rainbow in Meteorologica, Book III.57 But it is
clear that Bacon was led to this discussion due to his disagreement
with the translation of this work by William of Moerbecke.58 Before
dealing with Bacon’s account, it is important to note that it is intended
as an exemplum of an experimental science. It was never designed as
a full Treatise. He did not have the leisure or circumstances to pro­
duce one. But he did point the way.59*
While Bacon’s concern with the Rainbow is rooted in his reading
of both Aristotle and Seneca, it is worth noting here that his scien­
tific instincts were correct. He would not be the last philosopher to
56 Aristotle, Meteorologica, III; Alexander D ’Aphrodisias, Commentaire sur les Meteores
D ’Aristote, ed. A.J. Smet, c.p., Louvain, 1968 (Corpus Latinorum Commentariorum
in Aristotelem Graecorum, IV).
57 See Kevin White, “Three Previously Unpublished Chapters from St Thomas
Aquinas’s Commentary on Aristotle’s METEORA: SENTENTTA SUPER METEORA
2.13-15,” Mediaeval Studies 54 (1992), 49-93. Omar Argerami informs me that Siger
of Brabant’s Questions on the Meteorology book three are not extant.
58 It is very clear that Bacon undertook the treatise on the Rainbow as a response
to contemporary discussions of William of Moerbecke’s novo translatio which reached
Paris in 1266. See Opus maius, part six, ed. cit., 179: considerandum est tamen hie
quod secundum Aristotelem, praecipue in nova translatione. See J. Brams, “Guillaume
de Moerbeke et Aristote,” in Jacqueline Hamesse & M arta Fattori, eds., Recontres De
Cultures Dans La Phibsophie Medievab: Traductions E t Traducteurs De UAntiquite Tardive Au
X IV e Siecle, (Louvain-La-Neuve-Cassino, 1990), 317-336. See n. 1: Bien que Pinvective
de Bacon ne puisse etre prise a la lettre, son affirmation concemant l’intention de
Moerbecke peut tres bien contenir un noyau de verite; etc.
59 Opus maius, part six, ed. cit., 201: Et ideo nullus sermo in his potest certificare;
totum enim dependet ex experientia. Et propter hoc non reputo me attigisse hie
plenam veritatem; quia nondum expertum sum omnia quae sunt hie necessaria, et
quia in hoc opere procedo via persuasionis, et ostensionis quae oporteat requiri in
studio sapientiae, et non per viam componendi SCRIPTA (my emphasis) de ea. Et
ideo non pertinet ad me hec hora dare certificationem impossibilem, sed sub forma
persuadendi de studio sapientiae pertransire.
We should note that Bacon’s circumstance as a retired Professor and active
Franciscan friar did not give him either the leisure or the means to do much Scien­
tific work after 1256. He complains of a ten year exile from active studies. Thus,
the works on the rainbow, halo and related pieces must be seen as polemical efforts
to get the leading “legal” authority in European education to exercise Influence on
the Universities to encourage scientific experimentation.
 298 JEREMIAH HACKETT
point to the study of the rainbow as the great example or indeed
experimentum cruris for an experimental science. One needs just to look
at Theodoric of Freiberg, Descartes, Spinoza and Newton among
others.60
Bacon’s approach to the study of the rainbow is quite traditional
in that he attempts like Aristode to give a causal-scientific account.61
(1) he isolates and describes the phenomenon; (2) He examines the
Shape of the Colors; (3) He attempts the Measurement of the Alti­
tude of the Rainbow; (4) He studies the Size and Shape of the bow;
(5) He examines the Time and Place of the rainbow; (6) He seeks
the Cause of the rainbow in the sense of the material and efficient
causes; (7) He examines the nature of the Appearance of the Colors in
the cloud; (8) He studies the nature of the colors in the rainbow.
Bacon recommends an examination of the rainbow using crystals,
an observation of the bow in drops of water, and of the colors in
a corona around a candle. In other words, following Aristotle, he
recommends that the experimenter examine the phenomenon very
careful in all of its occurrences. And second, using these stones, one
should work out the shape of the colors. Bacon would also have
found these remarks in both Aristotle and in Avicenna’s Treatise on
the Rainbow and Halo, and in Averroes.62 However, it is clear that
he was disappointed with Avicenna’s account, and believed that he
could offer a better analysis than the one found in Averroes.
Third, Bacon seeks an accurate Measurement of the altiltude of
the rainbow, and he sets out the ideal of strict measurement by means of
instruments:
Further, let the experimenter take the required instrument and look
through the openings o f the instrument and find the altitude of the
60 See references in A.C. Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and the Origins. . . , op. cit.
61 See William A. Wallace, Causality and Scientific Explanation, Vol. I: Medieval and
Early Modem Science, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1972.
62 Most editions of Roger Bacon’s Opus maius, part six, omit any reference to
Avicenna and Averroes. In Opus maius, Bacon is critical of Avicenna on the Rain­
bow, and he does use the text of Averroes on Meteorologies, Book III. In fact, when
the section on the rainbow is taken in conjunction with Bacon’s treatment of the
Halo in Opus tertium, it will be seen that he is both influenced by and responds to
Avicenna. But in this section of Opus maius, part six, on the description of rainbow
phenomena, Bacon draws on Aristotle, Avicenna and Averroes. For Avicenna on
the Rainbow, see MS Urb. Lat. 186, 159v-l 73v. I am grateful to Klaus Braun for
this reference.
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTAUS 299
sun above the horizon, and keeping the instrument immovable let him
turn in the opposite direction and look through the openings of the
instrument until he see the summit o f the bow, and let him note the
the altitude of the rainbow above the horizon; and he will find that
the higher the sun’s altitude is, the lower is that of the bow and con­
versely . . . the Trained Experimenter can test until he discovers the
opposed altitude of the rainbow and of the sun, namely that beyond
which there can be not appearance of the rainbow. He must then give
his attention to the calculation of the altitude of the circles.. . .
The experimenter, therefore, taking the altitude of the Sun and of
the Rainbow above the horizon will find that the final altitude at which
the rainbow can appear above the horizon is 42 degrees, and this is the
maximum elevation of the Rainbow.63
This is the only calculation which we find in this treatise. And the
question naturally arises as to whether or not Bacon himself made
this observation and calculation. However, he does develop a related
issue, the observation and calculation of the Halo in Opus tertium,
and in that text he does provide evidence that he was accomplished
in the uses of the Astrolabe.64
Fourth, Bacon’s description of the size and shape of the rainbow
is quite traditional and chapter five is dependent on Aristotle. Fifth,
the account of the Time and Place of the bow is also traditional, and
presupposes a knowledge of the De sphera of Sacrobosco.65
Sixth, perhaps the most interesting epistemological aspect of the
whole treatise is found in chapters seven and eight. Bacon sets out to
discover “whether the bow is caused by incident, reflected or refracted
rays. And whether it is an image of the sun, as was assumed in the
statements made on Perspectiva, and whether there are real colors in
the cloud itself. He must also inquire concerning the variety and
cause of the shape of the bow, since a statement was made above
just in regard to the size of its figure, namely, that sometimes it is a
complete circle, and sometimes a larger portion, and sometimes the
smaller. But to understand these matters we must use experiments
certis”66
63 Opus maius, part six, ed. Bridges, 175.
64 Opus tertium, ed. Pierre Duhem, 137-148; see ed. A.G. Little for same text. It
should be pointed out that Bacon studies both the Rainbow and Halo as one theme.
Most scholars isolate the issue of the Rainbow. I am preparing a study on the Halo
in these works of Bacon.
65 Lynn Thorndike, The Sphere o f Sacrobosco and its Commentabrs, Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1949.
66 Opus maius, part six, ed. cit., 185.
 300 JEREMIAH HACKETT
This section of the account on the rainbow has caused much diffi­
culty. For a variety of reasons based on a good knowledge of perspectwa
and on the motion of a person toward and away from a rainbow,
Bacon concludes that the cause of the Rainbow is neither the inci­
dent rays nor the refracted rays but rather the reflected rays. Reflec­
tion, therefore, alone accounts for the rainbow. It was this account
which led Charles B. Boyer to offer a strong criticism of Bacon.67
However, he did not notice that Bacon was in fact making a strong
argument against a peculiar Refraction theory set out by Robert Gros­
seteste. The latter had proposed an explanation by means of a series
of refractions in the interior of the Cloud. More recently, David C. Lindberg
pointed out that Bacon was quite correct to notice some of the incon­
gruities of Grosseteste’s theory, and he corrected it. Further, he argued
that Bacon advanced the study of the rainbow by placing emphasis
on the reflection in small drops of water, and not on the whole cloud
as a reflecting totality as Grosseteste had done.68 Theodoric of Freiberg,
who knew Bacon’s treatise, would correctly demonstrate in 1307 that
the primary rainbow is caused when sunlight falls on individual drops
of moisture the rays undergo two refractions (upon ingress and egress)
67 Carl B. Boyer, The Rainbow, 100-101: The reader may have noted that Bacon
spoke of the bow as generated by multiple reflections and refractions and a question
arises here, as it did with Albertus. Did the author intend to use the word refraction
in the modem sense?
Boyer answers negatively. However, he notes correctly that Bacon does criticise
the “triple-refraction” theory of Grosseteste.
68 David C. Lindberg, “Roger Bacon’s Theory of the Rainbow .. art. cit. 236:
It is quite true that Bacon drew attention away from refraction, but was this neces­
sarily a regressive step? It is my thesis that although Bacon denied any role to
refraction, he advanced the theory of the rainbow in two crucial respects. First, he
rejected refraction for good reasons, by advancing sound criticisms against some of
the more absurd aspects of Grosseteste’s refraction theory. True, refraction was
required for the eventual solution of the rainbow problem, but not all in the form
suggested by Grosseteste; therefore before refraction could be properly exploited for
understanding the rainbow, criticism such as Bacon’s was required. Second, although
Bacon did not promote the cause of refraction, he did develop and refine other
constituents essential to any satisfactory explanation of the rainbow. Refraction is
only one essential; it is necessary also to see that reflection is involved and above all
that reflection and refraction occur in the individual drop. Bacon made a significant
contribution then, when he called attention to the function fulfilled by individual
drops, arguing that the rainbow appears in a different set of drops for each observer.
In dismissing Bacon for his exclusive use of reflection, therefore, we are ignoring
some of his important contributions to the development of the theory of the rain­
bow. Briefly stated, it is instructive to see why Bacon insisted that the rainbow is
caused by reflection alone. (See below for an account of the practical goals involved
in Bacon’s various accounts of mirror-phenomena, and for the nature of his experi­
mental concerns.)
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPER1MENTALIS 301
and one reflection (at the backside of the drop) before transmission
to the eye of the observer. Descartes and Newton would advance
this explanation.
In chapter eight, Bacon examined the issue of the objectivity of
the colors in the cloud. This matter may seem secondary, but in
epistemological terms it was to play a major role during the next
two centuries and into the future. Naturally, vision alone cannot
produce color. Since for Bacon, however, color is a result of reflexion
alone, a problem arises. He argues that in the case of the rainbow,
there is only an Appearance of Color in the cloud and not real color.69
The colors in the rainbow, then, unlike fixed colors in objects are
the result of vision, and therefore can have no reality but are merely an
appearance.
69 Opus maius, part six, ed. cit., 190-91. But then it is the case that there will be
nothing in the place of the bow except an appearance of color, and it will only
happen when the bow appears. For it was stated that the rainbow changes accord­
ing to the different perspective of the viewer. But vision does not produce the colors
in cloud, as is clear. Hence, there will be nothing there except an appearance.
Again, reflected vision has a visible object at the terminus of the reflected visual ray,
as was shown above, and not at the point of reflexion or elsewhere. And because
the object seen is the terminus of reflexion and of the reflected line, it follows that
nothing is seen by reflexion in the cloud.
Yet if it is stated that vision is sensibly and vividly excited by the rainbow, and
quite lively colors appear in the rainbow, and therefore it is not possible that there
is merely an appearance of colors, it ought to be stated that just as there is only an
appearance of colors so there is only a sensible appearance and a lively change of
vision. For such change is due to nothing else than a defect of vision, as we see in
the examples. For in the summer morning, when a person lowers their head to the
ground in order to see drops of dew on the ends of the grass, and if he looks at
them in a careless or easygoing manner with half closed eyes, he sees in appear­
ance all the colors of the rainbow. And similarly in the colored circle around the
candle. . . . Therefore, it ought to be the case that this is due to a defect in vision,
and because of this there is an appearance (of colors) and not true color. Indeed,
this appearance is strengthened as though it existed in the place of the rainbow.
And this is due to the fact that the visual ray quickly intersects the cathetus because
of the smallness of the drops of rain. And so in this manner there is an appearance
of color near the point of reflexion, and for this reason in this matter and in the
location of the rainbow.
Yet, it if is stated that the rays of the sun passing through a crystal produce true
and real colors, which make a species and are in the definition of the object, it
should be stated that the real situation is different. The observer alone produces the
Rainbow, and there is nothing out there (in reality) except a reflexion. In the case
of the crystal, there is a natural cause, that is the ray and the layered stone, which
has a great diversity of surface, so that according to the angle at which the light
falls a diversity of colors will results. And looking at them does not cause the colors
to be present here, for there is color before it is seen here, and it is seen by different
people in the same place. But in the case of the Rainbow, there is an appearance
due to Vision, and therefore there cannot be true color but only an appearance of
color. And this is evident by what was said above concerning the visual pyram id.. . .
 302 JEREMIAH HACKETT
Naturally, this whole issue is concerned with the nature of Species,
Intentional being, and Objective or Apparent Being, and it would lead to
some of the most vexed issues concerning Species as mediatingfactors in
human knowledge in the next few centuries.70 Here, we locate Bacon’s
discussion of the epistemological status of the rainbow at the start of
this debate. It would be instructive here to indicate the similarities
and differences between this account by Bacon and the account given
by Albertus Magnus in his treatment of the same section of the
Meteorobgica of Aristotle.71
In tractatus four of Book III of his comments on the Meteorologba,
Albertus Magnus like Bacon, maintains that these issues cannot be
solved without the aid of perspectiva. And like Bacon he sets out to
give an interpretation of both Aristotle and Seneca. Again, like Bacon,
he criticises those books which make claims which go against the
facts of experience.72 Having noted that the ancients held that the
rainbow was the result of many confused Images, Albertus notes that
Possidonius like Artemidorus believed that the rainbow is a Mirror
in a concave cloud and that there are no real colors in the bow. (Sed
dicit colorem nullum esse in iride) In his view, there was no real color but
a mere appearance of color. This, he states, is also the view of
Seneca.73 In Ch. 9, Albertus addresses these positions seeking out
70 See Katherine M. Tachau, Visum and Certitude in the Age of Ockham: Optics, Epistemol­
ogy and the Foundations o f Semantics, 1250-1345, Leiden-New York-Kobenhavn-Koln:
E.J. Brill, 1988; See forthcoming paper on Petrus Aureol “In the Ambit of Another
Faculty: Parisian Theologians and the (Meta) physical Universe,” in John Van Engen
and Edward J. English, eds., foaming Institutionalized: Teaching in the Medieval University
(Papers of the 1992 NEH Colloquium, University of Notre Dame). This paper
demonstrates how these ideas of Bacon are at the root of much of the debate on
whether or not knowledge needs a “real object” to ensure the proper Objectivity of
knowledge. See also Andre de Muralt, L ’Enjeu de la Philosophic Medievale: Etudes thomistes,
scotistes, occamiennes et gregoriennes (Leiden-New York-Kovenhavn-Koln, 1991).
71 Albertus Magnus, Tractatus IV, Meteorobgica III (Borgnet edition), Ch. XI, 679.
72 P. HoBfeld, “Der Gebrauch Der Aristotelischen Ubersetzung in Den Meteora Des
Albertus Magnus,” Medieval Studies XLII (1980), 395-406. It should be noted that
Albertus and Bacon share a common attitude to Aristotle. Where the text of Aristotle
or any other ancient philosopher differs from their common or contrived experi­
ence, they subjet the views of the ancients to critical scrutiny. For an overview of
Albert as a scientist and natural philosoher, see Paul HoBfeld, Albertus Magnus als
Naturphilosoph und Naturwissenschaftler (Bonn: Albertus-Magnus-Institut, 1983).
73 It is clear that both Albertus and Bacon are taking the issue of the appearance
of the colors of the rainbow from Seneca, Naturaks questiones. Whereas Bacon very
deliberately uses the resources of perspectiva to expand and defend the position of
Seneca, Albertus is more hesitant about the scope of perspectiva. Moreover, he holds
a strong view of the objectivity of the colors in the rainbow, whereas Bacon distin­
guishes sharply between color as due mainly to a reflexion phenomenon and the
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTALIS 303
quid verum et quid fabum sit in eb. Having discussed the mirror phe­
nomenon in small drops of water, he states; “It generally appears
absurd when they state that there is no true color in the rainbow.
For since the light of all color is a hypostasis and a substantial form
and constitutes depicted colors by its rays in a dense perspicuous
object, it follows that there is true color. . . . Therefore, the position
of the Pythagoreans has no basis. . . . This error is due to a failure
to distinguish between (I) the material being of the color and (II) the
formal being of the color. The material being of the bow has Being
in the qualities of the subject in which it is found. . . . The formal
being of the color is due to the light. . . ,74*
The importance of this comparison is to demonstrate the actual con­
text of Bacon’s remarks. Like Albertus Magnus, he was a Medieval
Scientist dealing with a Medieval problem. Further, one notices the
continuity of influence from Ancient philosophy, in particular from
Greek and Roman sources. And in the end, what separates Bacon
from Albertus is his adherence to a Stoic analysis of the problem of
the rainbow as distinct from an Aristotelian answer. Naturally, Bacon’s
examination of the locus imagims and his work on perspectiva helped
confirm him in this view. But when we see Bacon’s remarks in con­
text, we will notice that in themselves they are part of a medieval
debate about human knowledge, and that those who were part of
this debate were very intelligent, indeed.
Roger Bacon on color
Did Bacon mark any advance on the traditional Aristotelian analysis
of color? It would seem that he did. Further, the analysis presented
in Bacon seems to have had some influence on the practice of Paint­
ing in the early Renaissance. Charles Parkhurst argues that “With
respect to color, Bacon draws our interest not only because he pro­
duced a synthesis of many historical sources on color, but also,
especially, because he made contributions to color theory from a
viewpoint entirely his own, and in doing so opened new vistas on
reality of color in objects where the same color and pattern is seen by different
observers. For Bacon, each observer of a rainbow has a distinct sense-datum. See
HoBfeld, art. cit., 404; See also his “Senecas Naturabs quaestiones als Quelle der Meteora
des Albertus Magnus,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicabrum 50 (1980), 63-84.
74 Albertus Magnus, ed. cit.
 304 JEREMIAH HACKETT
the future.”75 In the commentary on De sensu et sensato (1240’s/ 1250’s),
Bacon interprets Aristotle’s color theory in the light of Ibn al-Haytham’s
De aspectibus and Avicenna. Bacon takes up the discussion of Aristotle’s
systematic scale of colors between the extremes of white and black,
and notes in passing the numerical discrepancy in Aristotle.76 He
displays his acquaintance with the phenomenon of refraction of light
in “ice, clear glass, water and a crystal,” and proceeds to give an
account of the distinction of Lux (Light) and Lumen (the first natural
effect of light). He then presents a systematic classification of the
colors. In ch. 16, after a discussion of Aristotle, he proposes a radical
revision of Aristotle’s color system. Bacon in Ch. 17 takes over his
account from the De colore of Grosseteste. At most, Bacon makes
emendations to Grosseteste’s text in the account of how remission
and intension work to generate color. And yet, Bacon, while retaining
the number of seven colors from Aristode, and much material from
Grosseteste, argues that while their general account is good, it is lacking
in detail, (“but in particular it touches nothing, as is evident”)
Bacon’s theory of color in his later works presupposes the account
of light and vision in De multiplicatione specierum and in the Perspective
Parkhurst provides a good summary of the relation of light and color
in the former work, touching on such topics as the effect of strong
light, the multiplication of color, the role of species, how light and
its species find the way to the eye as the species of color, on the
mixing of black and white, on the optical mixture in the eye and on
the weakening of color, and a diagrammatical outline of a color rela­
tionship.77 Again in the Perspectiva, Bacon presentation covers similar
ground. In ch. 5, he takes up the discussion of the difference between
real and apparent color in the peacock’s tail and in rainbows, where
according to him, they exist only in appearance. Parkhurst expresses
the following judgment:
At no point that I can discover does Bacon question the Aristotelian
identification o f the three principal rainbow colors with those which
75 Charles Parkhurst, “Roger Bacon on Color: Sources, Theories and Influence,”
in The Verbal and The Visual: Essays in Honor of William Sebastian Heckscher, ed. Karl-
Ludwig Selig and Elizabeth Sears, New York, Italica Press, 1990, 151-202. See
151-2.
76 Roger Bacon, Liber de sensu et sensato, ed. R. Steele, (Chs. 11-15), 36-63.
77 Parkhurst, art. cit., 176: Bacon at this point (2.3.96) [De multliplicatione specierum]
interpolates a diagram (fig. 2), which is, so far as I can ascertain, the earliest extant
geometrical figure for a color relationship. . . .
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTLA EXPER1MENTAUS 305
are painters’ primaries (cf. Meteorologica, 3.1) where Aristotle wrote of
“the only colors (i.e. phoinikoun, prasinon and alourgon) which paint­
ers cannot manufacture: for there are (other) colors which they create
by mixing” (372a6); this represents a confusion of two mixing prin­
ciples nowadays called “addative” and “subtractive,” which spawned a
theory either accepted or argued against, until laid to rest in the mid­
nineteenth century by Helmholtz.78
Parkhurst adds the following concerning Bacon:
Bacon has little to say on general color theory, but what he says is
important and very succinct, as it confirms what we have deduced
from his first work on color, De sensu. If I read him correctly (the passage
is garbled, perhaps through copyists’ errors), his is saying that his basic
or minimal system o f color genera between whiteness and blackness
consists of three principal colors, yellowness, redness and greyblueness.
This is in line with the presentation we found in his De sensu, for he
states in this passage that there are in truth five “colores principales,”
clearly identified with his genera, albedo, glaucitas, rubedo, viriditas, and
nigredo.
Bacon pauses to justify numerologically his five-color system, with its
three middle colors. The five are “per naturam distincti” (his universal
and immutable genera). Five, he says, is a good number, but three is
better, as in the Trinity. He is clearly aware that this flies in the face
of classical theory and Aristotle’s dictum that there are seven colors,
no more no less.79
On the whole, it is Parkhurst’s judgment that “Bacon’s innova­
tive doctrines with respect to color were quietly revolutionary . . . for
Bacon’s thinking on color, though sometimes nebulous but often
focussed, as if by prescience, anticipates later systems and configura­
tions.”80 This influence is, perhaps, best seen in both Leonardo Da
Vinci and in Marsilio Ficino.
In his summary, Parkhurst claims that “Modem clorimetry is the
direct descendant of Bacon’s work though he could scarcely have
foreseen this. Nevertheless, the study of color variables began imme­
diately after his death. Theodoric of Freiberg firmly established the
binary mixing of color species for the production of mixed colors in
the early fourteenth century. Later in the trecento, Cennino Cennini,
following Giotto, instructs artists in the particularities of modelling
up with ever lighter tints of a pure color. In 1435, Alberti brings
78 Parkhurst, art. cit., 182.
79 Parkhurst, art. cit., 182-3.
80 Parkhurst, art. cit., 184.
306 JEREMIAH HACKETT
Grosseteste into the studio, as it were, and views white and black
paint as altematores of the principal colors. . . . Many of Bacon’s inno­
vations are apparent in his collocation, which device he may have
resorted to after a complete geometrical demonstration eluded him. .. .
Bacon’s efforts at systematics are manifest chiefly in his arrange­
ment of color names. . . .”81 In conclusion, Parkhurst points to Giotto
as the one who, a decade after the death of Roger Bacon “revolu­
tionized painting in Europe, and in so doing created an epitome of
Bacon’s color doctrines on the walls of the Arena Chapel at Padua,
ca. 1303-05.”82
The second prerogative of Scientia experimentalis: experience as a source
of both instruments and knowledge
Two other chapters of this volume deal with the two topics from the
second prerogative, namely, medicine and alchemy. My task here is
simply to review the context in Opus maius, part six, and to note
connections with other parts of the Opus maius.
The first example of an experimental devise which he gives here
is that of the Celestial armillary sphere. The second example is that
of medicine. He begins by expressing some skepticism of astrologer’s
claim that the shortening of life is due to a change in the arrange­
ment of the heavens. Rather, in his view, it is due to a failure of
people to follow a good regimen of health. Bacon sees the Experimen­
talist as one who supplements the normal medical regime’s of exer­
cise and health with new cures. In this way, the normal course of a
life can be prolonged beyond customary medieval “forty five or fifty
years.” In this Bacon is critical of the academic medical teachers:
But the medical art does not furnish remedies against this corruption
that comes from lack of control and failure in regimen, just as all
physicians expert in their own art know, although medical authors confess
that remedies are possible, but they do not teach them. For these reme­
dies have always been hidden from the whole rank and file of scien­
tists, and have been revealed only to the most noted, whom Aristotle
mentions in the division of the probable.83
81 Parkhurst, art. cit., 190.
82 Parkhurst, art. cit., 192; For Bacon and Giotto, see Klaus Bergdolt, “Bacon und
Giotto. Ein Einfluss der franziskanischen Naturphilosophie auf die bildende Kunst
am Ende des 13. Jahrhunderts,” Medizinhistorisches Journal 24 (1989), 25-41.
83 Opus maius, part six, ed. cit., 206-7.
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTALIS 307
Bacon sees the experimenter as one who can gain access to cures
which have been there since the time of Adam. In what follows, he
gives a list of all kinds of cures from ancient sources and contempo­
rary accounts.
The third example is taken from alchemy. Here, he argues that
“experiment” will lead to greater development in alchemy. And he
adds: “But experimental science by means of Aristotle’s Secretum secre-
torum knows how to produce gold only of twenty-four degrees but of
thirty and forty degrees and of as many degrees as we desire.”84
The third prerogative of Scientia experimentalis
Perhaps, it is best to cite Bacon’s remarks in full. It would appear
that Opus maius, part six, lacks a full development of this account.
And the reader should refer back to Opus maius, part four on the
limits of judicial astrology. He states:
But there is a third prerogative of this science. It arises from those
properties through which it has no connection with the other sciences,
but by its own power investigates the Secrets of Nature. This consists
in two things; namely, in the knowledge of the future, past and present,
and in the wonderful works by which it excels the ordinary astronomy
(judicial astrology) in the power of forming judgments. For Ptolemy
(tid: Pseudo-Ptolemy) [= Geminus] states in the The Introductory Book to
the Almagest that there is a more certain road to truth than that of the
ordinary astronomy (judicial astrology), and this is the path of experience/
experiment, which follows the course of nature, to which many of the
philosophers who are believers are now turning, just like Anstode and
a host of the authors of judgments formed from the stars, as he himself
states, and as we know by proper practice, which cannot be contradicted.
This science was discovered as a complete remedy for human igno­
rance and inadvertance; for it is difficult to get accurate astronomical
instruments, and it is more difficult to get verified tables, especially
those in which the motions of the planets is equalized. The use, more­
over, of these tables is difficult, but still more difficult is the use of the
instruments. But this science (Scientia experimentalis) has discovered the
definitions and means by which it can answer easily every question, in
so far as the power of a single branch of philosophy can do so, and by
which it can show us the forms of the Celestial Forces, and the influ­
ences o f the heavenly bodies on this world without the difficulty of
ordinary astronomy (judicial astrology). This part of the science relat­
ing to judgments has four principal divisions or secret sciences.85
84 Ed. cit., 215.
85 Ed. cit., 215-16. See also “Roger Bacon on Astronomy and Astrology” above.
 308
JEREMIAH HACKETT
This leaves the reader with a certain disappointment. It is clear that
Bacon is looking for a means to qualify the evident deterministic
tendencies of the regular judicial astrology. But his dependence on
Geminus, and his subsequent claim that he can find a way around
the skilled use of astronomical instruments, verified tables and calcu­
lations, leaves the reader to wonder. However, the remark that many
contemporaries are turning to the way of experiment, and to an
examination of the Secrets of Nature in the tight of Aristotle and the
authors on judicial astrology illustrate the extent to which Bacon is
a child of his times, and of the extent to which Aristotle was being
interpreted in an Astrological context. One also notes in this and in
what follows, the strong influence of the pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum
secretorum on Bacon’s thinking.
This introduces the conclusion of Opus maius, part six, which I am
going to call the Applications of Science and the Ruler as Philosophical
Chancellor.
Following on the third prerogative, Bacon notes that a military
leader may not always want to engage in Warfare. If the customs of
a people can be changed by altering the environment so much the
better. It is clear that Bacon has in mind the natural alterations to
the human complexio due to climate and geography. In this way, the
“complexions of their bodies can be changed, and then their minds
influenced by their complexions would choose good morals in accord­
ance with the freedom of the will. This is one of the Secrets (of
nature).”86 In this, Bacon is of course thinking of Aristotle as advisor
to Alexander. He then turns from the issue of how to influence the
“internal” behavior of people, and addresses the issue of the uses of
Military technologies.
He is clearly thinking of technologies whose use in War “without
a sword or any weapon requiring physical contact could destroy all
who offer resistance.”87 These inventions include: (a) poison gas, (b)
malta, a kind of bitumen, (c) yellow petroleum, (d) noise-makers and
explosive devices used to disorientate people. “And thus, there are
innumerable things that have strange virtues, whose powers we are
ignorant of only because of our neglect of the need to experiment.”88
86 Ed. tit., 216. See Secretum secretorum, ed. Steele, introduction.
87 Ed. tit., 217.
88 Ed. tit., 218. See S. Unguru, “Experiment in Medieval Optics,” in Sabetai
Unguru, Physics, Cosmology and Astronomy, 1300-1700 (Dordrecht/Boston/London:
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTALIS 309
Finally, Bacon refers to the uses of the Magnet with iron. This
example is instructive. He notes that the phenomenon of attraction
in things, as in plant life, ought not to be treated as Magic. He notes:
“This is a very wonderful thing. For this reason, Magicians perform
this experiment, repeating many incantations, and they believe that
the phenomenon is caused by virtue of the incantations. I have disre­
garded the incantations and have discovered the wonderful action of
nature, which is similar to that of the magnet on iron. For just as the
one attracts the other because of the similar nature of the iron and
the magnet, so do the parts in this case. Hence, the Natural Force
which is similar in both parts of the twig, causes them to unite.”89
(7) The uses of Scientia experimentatis for the Church and
the Commonwealth
Bacon concludes his account of this science by reviewing its uses in
Statecraft. Next to Moral Philosophy, it is the most useful, and it is
so in the first place to theology since it helps people to know the
literal meanings of things. “For I have shown above that the literal
meaning consists in expressing the truth in regard to created things
by means of their definitions and descriptions, and I likewise showed
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991), 163-181. [Boston Studies in the Philosophy of
Science, Vol. 126] Starting from Francis Bacon’s definition of Experiment as experience
quaesita, that is, not mere experience but a “sought after” experience, S. Unguru
comments: “Various groupings toward this recognition include Peter Maricourt’s ‘idus-
tria mmurri (It was Petrus Peregrinus whom Roger Bacon referred to in the Opus tertium
as ‘dominus experimentonmi), Roger Bacon’s own ‘scientia experimentalis,’ Thomas
Aquinas’ ‘scientia experimentalis’ or its identical twin ‘scientia experimentalis,’ Nicolas
of Cusa’s ‘experimenti statici,’ etc.” See 165-6 for his judicious account of Roger
Bacon’s notion of experience. (See n. 13 re. Induction: This shows that Bacon like
Ibn al-Haytham saw the Science of Optics as confirmatory o f theory rather than as a
technique of discovery). But while Roger Bacon lacks a formulation of the Francis
Baconian Induction, he did think that experience itself when studied carefully and
methodically could yield new scientific information and technologies. See below.
89 Ed. tit., 219. O n the Magnet, see the Epistola de magnete of Petrus Peregrinus,
dated 1269; See below for the relationship of Bacon and Petrus Peregrinus. See
Unguru, pp. 166-72 on “Witelo’s ‘hands-on,’ pragmatic, matter of fact approach-----
This is also, perhaps, the place to point out that Witelo uses this very ‘organum
refractionis’ in Book X to prove experimentally, as he puts it, his various conclusions
about refraction.” From the present paper, it will be clear why Roger Bacon was no
less “experimentally” involved in such matter than Witelo; his problem was the refusal
of his Franciscan superiors to allow him to be involved. Thus, he became the “scientific”
advocate for the Parisian scientific movement in the mid-13th century, a movement
which existed outside of the Arts Faculty with its concentration on the philosophic
communis, that is, Grammar-Logic and Aristotelian texts.
 310 JEREMIAH HACKETT
that reasoning does not arrive at this truth, but experiment does.
Wherefore, this science next to Moral Philosophy will present the
literal truth of Scripture most effectively, so that through suitable
adaptations and similitudes the spiritual sense may be derived, owing
to the peculiar nature of the sacred Scripture and in accordance
with the methods employed by the sacred writers and by all sages.”90
This science is useful then for Church and State since it provides
a special knowledge of the future, present and past so that all useful
pursuits can be encouraged and evil activities be avoided.
Above all, this science will provide a way forward: it will help to
distinguish between a Science and Art of Mature and the Practices of
Magicians. Bacon states:
But there is still another very useful way; since the formation of judg­
ments, as I have said, is a function of this science, in regard to what
can happen by Mature or can be effected in Art, and what does not
happen in these. This science, moreover, knows how to separate the
illusions of Magic and how to detect all their errors in incantations,
invocations, conjurations, sacrifices and cults. But unbelievers busy
themselves in these mad acts and trust in them, and believed that the
Christians used such means in working their miracles.91
Bacon, further, thinks that this science will be of use for the persuasion
of Christian belief. He ends this section by arguing that this science
can work to the advantage of Christianity, and he cites the example
of Alexander the Great once more, and states that it is in the inter­
est of Princes and Prelates to encourage this kind of study. Just prior
to this conclusion, he sets out his vision of this science as follows:
We must consider, however, that although other sciences do many
wonders, as in the case of practical geometry, which produces mirrors
that bum up every opposing object, and so too in the other sciences,
90 Ed. cit., 219-20. For Grosseteste on this issue, see James McEvoy, “The Sun
as res and signum: Grosseteste’s Commentary on Ecclesiasticus ch. 43, w . 1-5,” in
Resch. Theol. one. med., 41 (1974), 38-91. Bacon in Opus maius, parts four and six, is
dependent on this text for the present issue. See also Klaus Bergdolt, “Der Sehvorgang
als theologisches Analogen Augenanatomie und -physiologie bei Roger Bacon,” in
Sudhqffs Archixi 1 (1991), 1-20.
91 Ed. cit., 221. On the need for the experimentalist to know both science and
magic, see Bacon’s remarks below concerning Petrus Peregrinus in the Opus tertium.
O n the role of Magic in relation to science in classical antiquity, see G.E.R. Lloyd,
Magic, Reason and Experience: Studies in the Origin and Development o f Greek Science,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). In the light of this study, it is clear
that Roger Bacon manages to hand on a unique synthesis of ancient views on these
topics.
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTTA EXPERIMENTAUS 311
yet all things of such wonderful utility in the State belong to this science.
For this science has the same relation as the Science of Navigation to
the Carpenter’s Art and that of Military Art to that of the engineer.
For this science teaches how wonderful instruments may be made, and
uses them when made, and also considers all Secret things owing to
the advantages they may possess for the State and for individuals. And
it directs other sciences as its handmaids, and therefore the whole power
of speculative science is attributed especially to this science. And now
the wonderful advantages o f these three sciences in this world on behalf
o f the Church of God against the enemies of the faith is manifest, who
should be destroyed rather by the discoveries of science than by the
warlike arms of combatants. The Antichrist will use these means freely
and effectively, in order that he may crush and confound the power of
this world, and by these means tyrants in times past brought the world
under their sway.92
(8) Roger Bacon and experiment: Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt
One answer to the vexed issue of “experiments” in Roger Bacon is
to return to the very significant remarks by Bacon in Ch. XIII of the
Opus tertium.93 Here he devotes an encomium to one whom he regards
as the leading experimentalist in Paris. This person declined honors
and offices so that he could devote himself to his experimental work.
Bacon begins this chapter by noting its connection with Opus maius,
part six. Again, he notes that the argumentative approach by the
Natural Philosophers in discussions of the Meteorologica of Aristotle
and the Perspectivists by means of bare geometrical proof try to con­
cern themselves with “experimental” matters but do so in vain, “since
experience alone verifies this area and not bare argument.” He adds:
“And so I present the roots of the experiences concerning these
matters, which only one person among the Latins can understand,
namely, Magister Petrus”.94* Bacon returns to many of the sources
which we have seen above, and draws the connection again between
92 Ibid., 221.
93 Opus tertium, ed. Brewer, 43-47; 107-120.
94 Ibid., 43: Et ostendi ibi maximam potestatem, quam habet haec scientia super
alias certificandas. Naturales quidem in libro Metheororum Aristotelis, et perspectivi,
negotiantur circa hoc certificanda, sed in vanum; quia sola experientia certificat hie,
et non argumentum. Et ideo pono radices experientiarum circa ista, quas nullus
Latinorum potest intelligere, nisi unus; scilicet, Magister Petrus. Et sic est de aliis
rebus naturalibus.
 312 JEREMIAH HAGKETT
the scientia experimentalis and astronomia. And again, he returns to the
subaltemation of the making of burning mirrors and other instru­
ments to practical geometry and adds:
And so (with) this is the great instrument (product of art) which only
the faithful experimenter knows how to think out, but however he orders
the geometer to prepare and configure a mirror. And so the use of this
instrument is a task for the experimenter; the preparation of it a task
for the geometer.95
In what follows, Bacon as in Opus maius, part six, points to the uses
of technologies, especially their uses in warfare against the Tartars
and the Sarascens. And it is here that he then offers the encomium
of Magister Petrus in detail: he is the one who avoids the verbalisms
and arguments of the common teachers; he knows natural things by
experience, medicine, alchemy and the secrets of nature; he exam­
ines all sources of knowledge, and from rustic matters to military
matters, he is a practical expert; not only that, but he also knows the
frauds and trickery of the Magicians. And indeed without his assis­
tance, the whole of philosophy is not able to be completed. But he,
who could receive many honors, ignores them so that he can get on
with his experimental work. Most of all, he has worked for three
years on the construction of a Burning Mirror, an object whose
construction most Latins do not understand, and even though they
have books on this matter, they never attempted the experimental
construction of this kind of mirror.96 Further, Bacon informs us that
he sent a “crystallinum sphericum ad experiendum” with the Opus maius, De
multiplkatione specierum, and other works to the Pope through the agency
of his pupil, John, and that he had instructed his pupil Iohannes in
“the demonstration and configuration of this mysterious thing”91 He adds: “And
95 Op. tert., ed. Brewer, 45.
96 Ibid., 47; see also 111-13. O n Petrus Peregrinus, see E. Schlund, “Petrus
Peregrinus von Maricourt: sein Leben und seine Schriften,” Archivum Franciscanum
Historicum, 4 (1911), 436-55; 633-43; 5 (1912), 22-40; Edward Grant, “Peter
Peregrinus, Pierre de Maricourt (fl. ca. 1269),” in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, xiv
(1976), 532-40.
97 Op. tert., ed. Brewer, 111: Note the point Bacon is making here. The Natural
Philosophers are not able to account for Refraction by means of arguing to the
Cause from the Effect (Method of Synthesis/Analysis), but with the help of Geome­
try, combustion due to mirror reflection can be explained. The same is the case for
all other works of nature. Their causes can only be accounted for by means of
geometry, and thus the appeal to Occult causes by the Natural Philosophers is
futile. And then he adds: Puer vero Johannes portavit crystallum sphaericum ad
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTALIS 313
through the grace of God this MIRROR has already been constructed by the
wisest of the Latins.”*98*
We can now see the end result of all of the Theory of Vision, the
Theory of Force (Species) and the Theory of Burning Mirrors. All of
it was directed at the improvement of the Military strength of the
Latin West in the context of their new awareness, due to William of
Roebruck and other Travellers, of their fragile place in a bigger World.
This would not be the first or last time that the demands of military
necessity would lead to a concern with the construction of new experi­
mental instruments. But it does prove that Bacon was very much in
tune with the main experimental concerns of the few at the Univer­
sity of Paris who did this kind of work. And although he refers to
himself in the late 1260’s as a Senex, he did, by means of his writings,
do much to keep the experimented vision alive for future generations
in the Latin West.
We can now claim in the light of the above, that Roger Bacon
was very much involved in the first truly experimental work at the
University of Paris in the 13th century. We can claim that he wrote
the basic treatises on the geometry of this work, and that he was
indeed involved in some Experiments with the Dominus experimentorum,
Magister Petrus Peregrinus. Further, in the light of the above, we
will have to claim that they did in fact operate as a team: the one
was the actual Experimenter, the other was the “theorist” who wrote
both the hard scientific Treatises and the propaganda for the ad­
vancement of Science. This is what the Opus maius is: a combination
of scientific treatise and a rhetorical persuasion for the advancement
experiendum; et instruxi eum in demonstratione et figuratione hujus rei occultae.
Nec est aliquis in tota Italia, sicut nec Parisius duo, qui possunt dare causam
suflicientem in hac parte; et multa exposui circa hac fractiones.
98 Ibid., 113: Et iam per Dei Gratiam factum est hoc speculum per sapientissimum
Latinorum. See also pp. 116-7. First, note the reference to the auctor libri de speculis
comburentibus. Bacon is, of course, the author of the Latin De speculis comburentibus, but
this seems to be a clear reference to Bacon’s use of Gerard of Cremona’s Latin
translation of Ibn al-Haytham’s O n parabolic burning Mirrors. (See A.I. Sabra,
op. cit., II, xliii-iv. Second, note what Bacon states: the great experimenter, Petrus
Peregrinus, constructed such a mirror at Paris [“Sed cum magnis expensis et laboribus
factum est; nam artifex damnificatus est in centum libri Parisiensibus, et pluribus
annis laboravit, dimittens studium et alias occupationibus necessarias . . .”]. Further,
Bacon points out that prior to his work on the Multiplication o f Species, no such work
existed among the Latin Westerners. But, he says, all of this experimental and geo­
metrical work is ignored by the Vulgus philosophantium at Paris.
 314 JEREMIAH HACKETT
of science. And further, it does provide strong evidence that actual
experimental work with Instruments was carried out by these experi­
menters. They did this, of course, as did their 17th century Counter­
parts, on the margins of University life, and often in the face the
verbosity of Arts and Theology faculties who had not time for that
kind of study.
What then became of Roger Bacon’s fame and reputation in the
Later Middle Ages and the Renaissance? Some three hundred years
or so later, it was his fate to become known as a Magician, indeed
someone whom a modern age could honor but ignore.
We have now seen the wide-ranging dimensions of Roger Bacon’s
Scientia experimentalis. The first thing to be noted is that it is a Medi­
eval experimental science, and not the science of the 19th and 20th
centuries."
Within that context, one can see that decisions made by Roger
Bacon and his contemporaries would in time bring about in the
Renaissance a greater sense of autonomy in the science and art of
Nature. The search for the Secrets of Nature, would, as we know
form recent scholarship, play a significant role in the discovery of
early modern science. There are echoes of Roger Bacon’s project in
the English Renaissance. One need but look at the works of John
Dee to notice the great continuity of influence.100 And there are hints
of influence in Francis Bacon. Further, there is some evidence of
Bacon and his contemporaries in William Gilbert.101 And yet, an­
other index of the continuity of Roger Bacon’s project is to be found
in an unlikely place, that is, in the “new” science of Renee Descartes.
99 In this context, it is important to refer to Professor Lindberg’s remarks on
Experimentation in Bacon’s perspectiva in the previous chapter. Yes, he did do some
experimentation. Yes, much is taken from ancient and medieval books. T hat he and
his contemporaries did attempt to build instruments to measure the angles of reflection
is attested in the case of Witelo. (See S. Ungura art. cit.) But in the light of Bacon’s
apobgia, it is easy to see that he is a spokesperson for those like Petrus de Marancuria,
Dominus experimentorum at the University of Paris. And in that role, we must see him
as a retired Professor who acts as an advocate for science in what was a strongly
verbal and bookish culture.
100 See John Dee’s Diary and Library Catalogue for the strong influence of Roger
Bacon, and also see his works, some of which draw heavily on Bacon’s geometrical
treatises. I would be surprised if Francis Bacon did not see the dependence on
Roger Bacon by John Dee.
101 See William Gilbert, De magnete for the influence of the De magnete of Magister
Petrus and by implication of Roger Bacon.
ROGER BACON ON SCIENTIA EXPERIMENTALIS 315
Recently, A. Mark Smith has demonstrated the profound continu­
ity between Medieval perspectival theory on the optics of Renee
Descartes.102 A similar line of influence can be demonstrated for the
continuity in Scientia experimentalis.103
We began this chapter with a review of modern research. But
immediately, in the first note we drew attention to a small but real
influence by Roger Bacon on Francis Bacon. The influence definitely
proves that Francis Bacon read at least one of the texts closely con­
nected to Opus maius, part six, de scientia experimentali. Thus, an influence,
however small, by Roger Bacon on Francis Bacon in the direction of
experimentalism can no longer be ruled out.
Further, we can say that each of the modern commentators saw
some side of the man and his work. Certainly, he was a Medieval
scientist, heir to the hermetic tradition. But more importantly, he
was heir to the great Translation movement (1120-1280), and only
Albertus Magnus and possibly Richard of Fournival matches Bacon’s
range in sources. That he was well placed by his training in England
to absorb the new Arabic learning is clear. Thus, he was in a good
position as a Professor and later as a Friar to contribute to its devel­
opment. That he was interested in and did attempt some experimen­
tation has been demonstrated. However, it has also been shown that
in the 1260’s he was a senex, that is, one who is over-forty years of
age, and quite old by medieval reckoning. His inability to do experi­
mental work in the 1260’s in a formal manner was due to his situ­
ation in life: he was no longer a Professor. As a friar in the Franciscan
Order, he had other duties. Yet, his cooperation with Magister Petrus
in doing some experimental work led to his writing the “theory” of
experimental work with Burning Mirrors, “the most incisive and
original piece of geometrical optics produced in the West during the
entire Middle Ages”104 and to the writing of a work on the Multipli­
cation of Species and a work on Perspectiva. And in the end, even the
semiotics in the De signis is put to use to justify the Scientia experimentalis.
And here again, the De docta Christiana had to be re-interpreted and
extended to cope with the rhetoric and semiotic of science.
102 A. Mark Smith, “Descartes” Theory of Light, op. cit.
103 Jeremiah Hackett, “Experientia, experimentum and the Perception of Objects in
Space,” 30th Kolner Medievistentagung, 1996, Raum und Raumvorstellungen im Mittelalter,
Miscellanea Medievalia (forthcoming). Descartes in the Paris of the 1600’s found him­
self in an analogous position to Bacon and Magister Petrus: the Arts and Theology
faculties were not amused.
104 David C. Lindberg, Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature, ed. cit. Lxxi.
 13. AN OVERVIEW OF RO GER BACON’S ALCHEMY

William R. Newman1

Roger Bacon’s interest in alchemy was well-known to medieval and

early modern scholars, if one may judge by the numerous alchemical
pseudepigrapha that travel under his name.2 But few modern schol­
ars realize just how high Bacon’s hopes were for alchemy, or how
central a position it occupied in his reform of the sciences. Nor is it
common knowledge that Bacon’s alchemical theories were of a highly
idiosyncratic nature, and in some respects quite original.3 Bacon was
certainly enamoured of geometry and optics, as every historian of
medieval science knows. But in his Opus tertium (written 1267-8) Bacon

1 I would like to thank Dr. George Molland for allowing me to use his partial
transcript (ff. 124v~132r) of MS. Vaticanus reginensis latinus 1317, an important
unpublished fragment of Bacon’s Opus minus. Dr. Molland is preparing a new edi­
tion of the Opus tertium for publication. I have compared Dr. Molland’s transcript to
a microfilm of the MS. and have at some points made tacit changes: Dr. Molland
should not therefore be held responsible for the quotations of Vat. reg. 1317 as
printed here.
2 Newman, William R., “The Alchemy of Roger Bacon and the Tres epistolae
Attributed to Him,” in Comprendre et mmtriser la nature au moyen age (Geneva: Librairie
Droz, 1994), pp. 461-479; cf. pp. 461, 471; and Newman, The “Summa perfectwnis”
of pseudo-Geber (Leiden: Brill, 1991), pp. 46-47, n. 88.
3 The following entries are devoted to Bacon’s alchemy, but a definitive treat­
ment is lacking: Newman, William R., “The Philosophers’ Egg: Theory and Prac­
tice in the Alchemy of Roger Bacon,” Micrologus, 3 (1995), pp. 75-101; Michela
Pereira, L ’oro dei filosofi: saggio sulle idee di un akhimista del trecento (Spoleto: Centro
Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1992), pp. 43-83. Faye Marie Getz, “To Prolong
Life and Promote Health: Baconian Alchemy and Pharmacy in the English Learned
Tradition,” in Sheila Campbell, et al., Health, Disease and Healing in Medieval Culture
(London: Macmillan, 1992). Stanton J. Linden, “Roger Bacon in the Age of Francis:
The mirror o f akhimy and the mirror of nature,” in Cauda Pcwonis, 10 (1991), pp. 10-
13. Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, “Storia della scienza e storia della mentalita: Ruggero
Bacone, Bonifacio VIII e la teoria della ‘prolongatio vitae,” ’ in Aspetti della ktteratura
latina nel secob X III (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1986), pp. 243-280. Edmund Brehm,
“Roger Bacon’s Place in the History of Alchemy,” Ambix, 23 (1976), pp. 53-57.
Guy-H. Allard, “Reactions de trois penseurs du XIIT siecle vis-a-vis de l’alchimie,”
in La science de b nature: theories et pratiques. Cahiers d'etudes medievaks, II (Paris, 1974),
pp. 97-106. For the older literature, see Dorothea Waley Singer, “Alchemical Writ­
ings Attributed to Roger Bacon,” Speculum, 7 (1932), pp. 80-86, M.M. Pattison
Muir, “Roger Bacon: His Relations to Alchemy and Chemistry,” and H.W.L. Hime,
“Roger Bacon and Gunpowder,” in A.G. Little, Roger Bacon Essays (Oxford, 1914),
pp. 285-335.
318 WILLIAM R. NEWMAN
passes from those sciences to alchemy with a virtual manifesto on
the powers of alchemical science.4
First Bacon argues that the science that deals most properly with
the generation of things from the elements is “theoretical alchemy”
[alkimia speculativei), a discipline that is currentiy ignored by his con­
temporaries in the universities. He then argues that it is theoretical
alchemy that teaches how “simple and compounded humors” arise
from the elements, along with all the other things that descend from
elemental origins, such as precious stones, metals, pigments, and items
of chemical commerce and the technology of warfare, such as salts,
sulfurs, oils, and burning pitches. In addition, vegetables, animals,
and men derive from the humors, so that an ignorance of theoretical
alchemy necessarily entails ignorance in theoretical medicine, and thus
failure in practical medicine. But in addition to this critical science
of theoretical alchemy there is also a “practical alchemy,” {alkimia
operativa et practica) which teaches the manufacture of precious metals,
pigments, and other items of chemical technology. Practical alchemy,
moreover, can even surpass nature in the perfection of its products,
4 Roger Bacon, Opus tertium, in J.S. Brewer, ed., Fr. Rogeri Bacon, Opera quaedam
hactenus inedita (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1859), pp. 39-
40: “Sed alia est scientia, quae est de rerum generatione ex dementis, et de omni­
bus rebus inanimatis: ut de dementis, et de humoribus simplicibus et compositis; de
lapidibus communibus, gemmis, marmoribus; de auro et caeteris metallis; de sul-
phuribus, et salibus, et atramentis; de azurio, et minio et caeteris coloribus; de oleis
et bituminibus ardentibus, et aliis infinitis, de quibus nihil habemus in libris Aristotelis;
nec naturales philosophantes sciunt de his, nec totum vulgus Latinorum. Et quia
haec scientia ignoratur a vulgo studentium, necesse est ut ignorent omnia, quae
sequuntur, de rebus naturalibus; scilicet de generatione animatorum, ut vegetabilium,
et animalium, et hominum: quia ignoratis prioribus, necesse est ignorari quae
posteriora sunt. Generatio enim hominum, et brutorum, et vegetabilium est ex
dementis et humoribus, et communicat cum generatione rerum inanimatarum. Unde,
propter ignorantiam istius scientiae, non potest sciri naturalis philosophia vulgata,
nec speculativa medicina, nec per consequens practica; non solum quia naturalis
philosophia et speculativa medicina necessariae sunt ad practicam ejus, sed quia
omnes simplices medicinae de rebus inanimatis accipiuntur de hac scientia, quam
tetigi, sicut manifestum est in secundo libro Avicennae Medicinalis, qui simplices
medicinas enumerat; et ex aliis auctoribus manifestum est: quarum medicinarum
nec nomina sciri possunt, nec significata, nisi per hanc scientiam; et haec scientia
est alkimia speculativa, quae speculatur de omnibus inanimatis et tota generatione
rerum ab dementis. Est autem alkimia operativa et practica, quae docet facere metalla
nobiha, et colores, et aha multa melius et copiosus per artificium, quam per naturam
fiant. Et hujusmodi scientia est major omnibus praecedentibus, quia majores utihtates
producit. Nam non solum expensas et aha inhnita reipubheae potest dare, sed docet
invenire taha, quae vitam humanam possunt prolongare in multa tempora, ad quae
per naturam produci potest.”
AN OVERVIEW OF ROGER BACON S ALCHEMY 319
making a knowledge of it essential to the operational needs of the
commonwealth. Practical alchemy is useful in another way as well; it
is by means of this art that man can arrive at the prolongation of
human life up to its final and absolute limit.
Bacon’s alchemical manifesto in the Opus tertium will provide a rough
outline for the remainder of this paper. First I shall detail his idea
that alchemical theory provides the basis for studying the generation
of all natural things, then I shall pass to his goals for practical alchemy
in medicine and chemical technology. The purpose will be that of
giving an overview, and so the essay will conclude with a brief treat­
ment of Bacon’s place among the alchemical writers of his time. Let
us therefore proceed to a consideration of theoretical alchemy.
Alchemy and the Generation of Things from the Elements
Bacon begins his praise of alchemy in the Opus tertium with the state­
ment that this science can teach us about things generated from the
elements, such as “simple and compounded humors.” Before proceed­
ing into the depths of Bacon’s alchemical theory one must first get a
grip on this concept of two types of humors. Drawing on an alchemical
work spuriously attributed to Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya
ar-Razi, Bacon asserts that the most fundamental level of fully formed
terrestrial matter is provided by the four canonic elements, fire, air,
water, and earth, from which are composed in turn the four simple
humors—blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy, or as he likes to
call them, humor aereus, aqua vite, virtus ignea, and calx.5*Each of these
simple humors is composed of all four elements, but one element
5 The notion that the four elements “proceed up to twelve” is openly derived
from pseudo-Razfs Lumen luminum. See Bacon’s De erroribus medicorum, in A.G. Little
and E. Withington, Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi (Oxford, 1928), vol. 9, p. 159:
“Nam cum in libro qui Lumen luminum dicitur, quern multi Aristoteli ascribunt,
asserantur corpora 12 esse materialia ad species rerum generatas per naturam, ut
4or elementa et 8 alia, non potest naturalis in philosophia vulgata hec scire. . . . ” I
have verified that Bacon’s attribution to the Lumen luminum is correct by reference to
that text in Manchester, John Rylands MS. lat. 65, 13r: “Amplius omnis generatio
ex iiii dementis consistit. unde calor et frigus set et humor et siccitas opponuntur.
Omne etiam compositum ex simplicibus esse constat, sunt autem hec a iiii usque ad
xii quorum iiii simplicia sunt, viii vero composita. Omnia tamen hec inferior mundus
comprehendit.” The incipit of this Lumen luminum is “Cum de sublimiori atque
precipue. . . .” (TK 290). The text is described in a fundamental article by Julius
Ruska, “Pseudepigraphe Rasis-Schriften,” in Osiris, 7 (1939), pp. 31-94.
 320
WILLIAM R. NEWMAN
will dominate therein, in accordance with traditional medical theory.
These simple humors in turn give birth to four compound humors
(<humores compositi) which are also called blood, phlegm, choler, and
melancholy: the compound humors each contain all four of the simple,
but each is “denominated by the dominant one,” that is, each com­
pound humor receives its name from the simple humor that predom­
inates in it.6 Thus the humors as evacuated from a patient are actually
compounds, each containing a primary constituent.
Bacon has experimental evidence for the compound nature of the
humors as evacuated, provided by a well-known passage in Avicenna’s
Canon, where the Persian philosopher says that the physician should
put some blood into a vessel in order to observe its separation into
a spuma, a fex, a part like egg-white, and a watery substance. Although
the blood that issues forth during phlebotomy is itself a humor,
Avicenna states that there are actually four further humors contained
within blood which correspond to the strata within the flask—these
“humors” are colera rubea, melancolia, flegma, and aquositas.1 Bacon of
course equates these four with his simple humors, and as we shall
see, Bacon’s use of alchemical sources allowed him to put a pre­
mium on these simple humors that was certainly not shared by the
medical authors upon whom he drew. To Bacon, in fact, this genu­
ine Avicennian passage would serve to confirm that medicine ought
to be dependant on alchemy, for here Avicenna “sends the physi­
cians to alchemy.”8
6 Bacon, De erroribus, p. 157: “Et hii humores sunt primo 4or simplices, quorum
quilibet est ex elementis 4or sed ex uno per dominium; et deinde sunt 4or humores
compositi, quorum quilibet est ex 40r humoribus simplicibus, sed ex uno eorum per
dominium, ut in homine colerico, vel a membro colerico, exit humor compositus
qui vocatur colera, et tamen componitur ex omnibus simplicibus sed denominatur a
dominante. . .
7 Avicenna, Liber canonis Avicenne revisus et ab omni errore mendaque purgatus summaque
cum dihgentia Impressus (Hildesheim: Olms, 1964. Reprint of Venice, 1507), f. 6r: “Ipsum
quoque sanguinem aliis invenimus admixtum humoribus que ab eo separantur. Cum
enim extrahitur et ordinatim ponitur in catin visu discemitur quod separatur in
partem que est sicut spuma. et est colera rubea: et partem que est sicut fex et res
turbida. et est melancolia: et partem que est sicut albumen ovorum et est flegma: ut
partem aquosam que est aquositas. . . . ”
8 Bacon, De erroribus medicorum, in Litde and Withington, De retardatione accidentium
senectutis, pp. 156-157: “Medicus autem, licet tangat, tamen non explicat sed transmittit
medicos ad alkimiam. sicut patet per Avicennam in primo canone, ubi disputat
contra Galienum dicentem quod solus sanguis currat per nutriendas partes corporis.
Ostendit autem quod alii humores sunt necessarii propter multas causas, et post
AN OVERVIEW OF ROGER BACON’S ALCHEMY 321
Bacon clearly associated Avicenna’s experiment with the common
alchemical practice of “separating the elements” of various substances
by means of stratification and fractional distillation. One of the main
conduits of this practice was an Arabic forgery attributed to Avicenna
which came to be called the Liber de anima, a work with which Bacon
was intimately acquainted (not to be confused with the genuine De
anima or Liber sextus de naturalibus, Avicenna’s work on the soul).9 Pseudo-
Avicenna’s De anima provides extensive recipes for separating the four
elements from such diverse products as apples, milk, and cheese. In
the case of milk, for example, the author says that upon its distilla­
tion a clear, tear-like substance passes over first: this is the element
of water. When the distillation continues, a yellow water follows, and
a black, burnt substance is left in the flask. The yellow water corre­
sponds to air, the black residue to earth, and the smoky vapors that
appear during the process to fire. Hence all four elements have been
separated from the initial milk.10 Now Bacon was immensely impressed
by such examples of alchemy’s analytical prowess, but in the Opus
tertium he does not mean to say merely that alchemy teaches one
how to separate the elements from one another. Instead, he argues
that the books of alchemists teach things about the different orders
of humors that have gone unnoticed both by the physicians and the
natural philosophers.
In an unpublished section of the Opus minus, Bacon states that there
are not in fact two orders of humors, but three, and that the humors
are found in all sublunary things.11 In order to grasp his meaning, it
will be necessary to consider this important unedited passage in extenso.
Bacon begins by saying that the humors “are in all things, although
argumenta confirmat quod dicit per experientiam alkimie, dicens: Ipsum quoque
sanguinem aliis invenimus commixtum humoribus qui ab eo separantur.”
9 Ruska, Julius, “Die Alchemie des Avicenna,” Isis, 21 (1934), pp. 14—51.
10 ARTIS CHEM ICAE PRINCIPES, AVICENNA A TQU E GEBER, H O C
Volumine Continentur. Quorum alter nunquam hactenus in lucem prodijt: alter vero vestutis
exmplaribus coUatus, atque elegantioribus & pluribus pguris quam antehac ilhistratus, doctrinae
hums professoribus, hoc nostra editwne turn iucundior turn utilior evasit Adiecto Indice rerum
& verborum copioso. Cum gratia & privilegio. Basileae per petrum pemam M.D. LXXII.,
pp. 14—15: the first product is “clarius lacryma: & illud est aqua, post destillabis
inde alia non tam clara, & vertitur in colore citrino, & illud est aer, postea remanebit
terra combusta in fundo nigra, modo habes aquam, aerem & terram: ignis evanuit
in vaporibus & efficitur fumus, & fumus versus est in aquam. Et intellectum est,
quia omnia quae sunt in mundo de vitali & herbali sunt composita de istis quatuor
elementis, & ad ilia se solvunt.”
11 MS. Vaticanus reginensis latinus 1317, f. 129r-v.
 322 WILLIAM R. NEWMAN
they do not retain their own names in them. . . Supporting this
universality of the four humors with references to pseudo-Avicenna
and pseudo-RazI, Bacon continues to say that the humors are usually
called blood, choler, melancholy, and phlegm only when found in
animals. Nonetheless, Bacon says, the simple humors exist in beings
other than the animals, though they are not normally called such.
Indeed, “in no science other than alchemy are they named such in
things other than animals. . . . ” Alchemical writers, especially pseudo-
RazI, state that there are twelve elements or humors from which the
whole world is composed. These are what Bacon customarily calls
the four elements, the four simple humors, and the four compound
humors. He points out, however, that the alchemists are in the habit
of substituting one name for another, in order to maintain secrecy.
Thus a given humor can be referred to by the predominant element
in it, and a given element can be named after the humor in which
it predominates.12 At any rate, the composition from twelve elements
or humors, Bacon tells us, is especially true for man, the microcosm.
In the case of inanimate things, on the other hand, one cannot argue
for the presence of all four composite humors (blood, phlegm, choler,
and melancholy), though wherever four simple humors are present,
one can of course say that one composite humor is there. Conclud­
ing this passage, Bacon summarizes as follows:
But all things, both animate and inanimate, are generated from the
four humors, for the humors are resolved from earth and water by
means of vapor, as Aristotle teaches in Book IV of the Meteors, in the
beginning, from which [humors] stones, salts, sulfurs, atraments, bitu­
mens, oils, colors, metals and all minerals come into being.. . ,13
12 MS. Vaticanus reginensis latinus 1317, f. 129r.
13 From the unpublished section of the Opus minus transcribed by Dr. George
Molland from Vaticanus reginensis latinus 1317, f. 129r: “Sed in aliis rebus omni­
bus sunt, non tamen nomina retinent in eis. . . . Quod enim hii humores sint in
omnibus dicit Avicenna maiori libro et Rasi in libro qui lumen luminum vocatur. . . .
[129v] Corpora hec quatuor in animalibus habent nomina specialia et vulgata ut
dixi sed in aliis rebus non dicimus quod sit sanguis nec est colera nec melancolia
nec flemma si proprie loquamur. Sed concedimus bene quod sunt humores simplices
similes illis qui sunt in animalibus et idem secundum speciem licet non sic nominentur
quantum ad usitatem et propriam nominationem nec in aliqua scientia nominentur
in rebus aliis ab animalibus nisi in alkimia. . . . [130r] Et ideo dicit Rasi in libro qui
lumen luminum vocatur quod sunt quatuor elementa demum alia usque 12 ex quibus
hoc et totus mundus componitur ex quo habetur quod 12 sunt corpora naturalia ad
species rerum generabilium et corruptibilium consistentium in hoc mundo scilicet
animatarum scilicet quatuor elementa et quatuor humores simplices et quatuor
AN OVERVIEW OF ROGER BACON S ALCHEMY 323
In this summarizing passage, Bacon equates his notion of the four
simple humors with Aristotle’s theory that terrestrial things such as
metals are generated from two sublunar exhalations—one hot and
dry, the other cold and moist—mentioned at Meteors 378a. One can
therefore see precisely what Bacon means when he says that all
minerals and metals are composed of humors. He is referring to his
four simple humors, and according to him it is only the alchemical
writers, especially pseudo-RazI, who have dared to assert that these
are components of the world as a whole.14*Bacon’s claim then that
theoretical alchemy provided a theory of generation not found in
other sources refers, in sum, to the derivation of the world from the
simple humors blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy, or, to use his
peculiar terms, humor aereus, aqua vite, virtus ignea, and calx. This was
the primary contribution that theoretical alchemy made to his con­
cept of terrestrial coming-to-be. At the same time, alchemy provided
a powerful tool of material analysis in its techniques for the separa­
tion of the elements, and this technology of stratification and distil­
lation confirmed the very elemental theory that Bacon derived from
alchemical sources.
Medical Alchemy
It was precisely the alchemist’s ability to analyze and purify material
substances that led Bacon to an application of alchemy to medicine.
compositi ex simplicibus et maxime in homine qui est totus mundus scilicet minor
nam minor mundus occultatur et nichilus invenitur hec 12 in omnibus rebus animatis
scilicet quatuor ultima non inveniuntur nisi in rebus animatis scilicet plantis et
animalibus et hominibus in qualibet tamen re mixta ex humoribus simplicibus invenitur
unus de compositis quia simplices sunt in composito unde alkimistice locutus est
Rasi cum dicit hominem et totum mundum componi ex illis 12 nam cum dicit
quod homo componitur et totus mundus intelligitur homo qui est minor mundus
nam in eo maxime apparent hec 12 corpora.. . . Ex his vero humoribus omnia
generantur tarn animata quam inanimata nam humores resolvuntur a terra et aqua
per modum vaporis ut vult Aristoteles 4 Metheororum in principio ex quibus hunt
lapides et sales et sulphures et attramenta et bitumina et olea et colores [130v] et
metalla et omnia mineralia. . . .” The manuscript was identified by Auguste Pelzer,
“Une source inconnue de Roger Bacon,” Archivum Jranciscanum historicum, Annus XII,
Fasc. I—II, pp. 44-67.
14 Bacon, De enoribus, p. 156: “. . . hec sola scientiarum, scilicet alkimia, ausa est
diffinire quod primo sunt 4or elementa, deinde aha 4or, et 3° 4or usque ad duodecim,
ex quibus homo et totus mundus inferior componitur.”
 324 WILLIAM R. NEWMAN
Since it is in this area that Bacon is at his most original, it will
behoove us to consider his medical alchemy in some detail. In brief,
Bacon envisages two roles for alchemy in medicine, both related to
the technology contained in alchemical texts, especially the distillation-
technology of pseudo-Avicenna’s De anima. The first role consists in
purifying ordinary pharmaceuticals, which Bacon views as having been
abused by apothecaries. The second concerns a veritable idee fixe in
Bacon’s work, namely the prolongation of human life to its utmost,
by means of substances that have been “reduced to equality” with
the aid of alchemy. I shall dispense briefly with the more modest of
the two plans, for it belongs more to the treatment of Bacon’s medi­
cine than to that of his alchemy. Bacon’s plan to purify drugs by
means of alchemy receives a partial treatment in one of his best
known medical works, the De erroribus medicomm. In this text, Bacon
is concerned inter alia with the removal of poison (<momentum) from
otherwise beneficial medicines, such as laxatives. He describes several
methods of doing this that are explicitly alchemical, as the following:
. . . resolutions and separations o f one thing from another, which can­
not occur without the aid o f alchemy, which teaches how to resolve
one thing from another.15
What Bacon wants to separate in the above passage is “gross earthy,
poisonous substances,” which can be isolated from the active ingre­
dient (the virtus) of a drug. Moreover, some substances, such as “quick­
silver, and many others,” must be sublimed, in order to remove their
poisonous qualities.16 In addition, Bacon says that alchemical meth­
ods must be applied to all metals that are to be ingested; calcination
and dissolution “into water” must especially be employed so that the
metals do not merely pass inertly through the body.17
The type of purificational technology promoted by Bacon’s De
erroribus medkorum has little to do with the separation of the four humors
or elements that we described earlier. In the De erroribus Bacon is not
primarily concerned with purification at the profound level; rather
he wants to separate useless or poisonous by-products from a medically
desirable active ingredient. This role for alchemy is rather minor,
15 Bacon, De erroribus medkorum, p. 155: “.. . resolutiones et separationes unius ab
alio, quod norl potest fieri sine potestate alkymie, que docet resolvere quodlibet ex
quolibet.”
16 Bacon, De erroribus, p. 165.
17 Ibid.
AN OVERVIEW OF ROGER BACON’S ALCHEMY 325
however, when compared to his use for that discipline in the prolon­
gation of human life. Perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of
Bacon’s macrobiotic project can be found in a little studied work of
his, the fragmentary text printed as In libro sex scientiarum in 3° gradu
sapientie, which contains a comprehensive description of Bacon’s
macrobiotic project. The Liber sex scientiarum, as I shall call it in accord­
ance with Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, attempts to show the inter­
connectedness of Bacon’s scienlia experimentalis, alchemy, optics (including
catoptrics) “operative astronomy,” medicine, and geometry, in achiev­
ing Bacon’s program for the prolongation of human life.18 Bacon
begins the treatise by asserting that even postlapsarian man should
naturally attain to a vastly longer life span than obtains currently,
but that bad regimen transmitted from father to son has curtailed it
progressively over the centuries.19 As a result of this cumulative folly
and willfulness in neglecting proper regimen, the complexion of man
has been woefully corrupted. Yet, since this corruption arises from
natural causes, it should be capable of a natural correction. Indeed,
Bacon tells us exactly how he hopes to arrive at a medicine free
from corruption that will pass on its salutary benefit to man:
. ! . corruption arises in things on account of this— that the form can­
not satisfy the total appetite of the matter, and therefore it always desires
another form. And celestial agents are sufficient for leading its appetite
to a new form up until a form of equal complexion is induced, which
is the final good of nature, and this suffices for consummating the
appetite of matter in corruptible things and for taking away their cor­
ruption and excluding it forever.20
The “appetite of matter” refers to the insatiable desire, as it were, of
the inchoate prime matter infused with the forms of corporeality and
18 A.G. Little and E. Withington, eds., Fratris Rogeri Bacon De retardahone accidentium
senectutis cum aliis opusculis de rebus medicinalibus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928), pp.
181-186. For Paravicini Bagliani’s treatment of the text, see “Storia della scienza,”
pp. 257-261.
19 Cf. George Molland, “Roger Bacon and the Hermetic Tradition in Medieval
Science,” Vwarium 31 (1993), pp. 140-160, especially pp. 147-148.
20 Bacon, In libro sex scientiarum in 3° gradu sapienck, in Little and Withington, Opera
hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi (Oxford: Clarendon, 1928), vol. 9, pp. 183-4: “corruptio
accidit in rebus propter hoc quod forma non potest complere totum appetitum materie,
et ideo semper appetit alteram formam et agenda celestia sufficiunt ad promovendum
eius appetitum semper in novam formam usque quo inducatur forma equalis
complexionis, que est ultimum bonum nature, et hoc sufficit ad perficiendum in
rebus corruptibilibus appetitum materie et tollere corruptionem et excludere in
etemum.”
 326 WILLIAM R. NEWMAN
substance (Bacon’s materia naturalis) to be delim ited and form ed.21 As
B acon points out, corruption will continue to occur until the matter
in question receives a form o f equal com plexion; w hen such a form
has been provided, the substance in question will be incorrupt. W hat
Bacon has in mind by “equal com plexion” is a state where the qualities
o f the four elem ents exist in a condition o f perfect harm ony. This
does not m ean that the substance in question m ust have equal quanti­
ties o f fire, air, water, and earth. T o the contrary, if that were the
case, the substance w ould disintegrate rapidly, for fire, being m uch
m ore active than earth, w ould quickly overpow er the latter if the
tw o w ere present in equal am ounts. Incorruptibility can only be
attained w hen the elem ental qualities in a substance are equal “accord­
in g to virtue and active pow er,” n ot according to w eight.22 Such a
form o f equal com plexion can be produced in at least three ways:
first, the bodies o f the resurrected will exhibit perfect tem peram ent,
having had all their impurities purged aw ay by the conflagration.23
Second, this form already exists within a created substance— gold.
N onetheless, B acon insists that the gold must undergo an alchem ical
treatm ent in order to m ake it capable o f being digested.24 Finally,
nature, with the help o f art, can m ake this “equal body,”25 w hich is
the principle o f incorruptibility within gold, from any body o f unequal
com plexion— once the dom inating elem ent in that substance has been
corrupted.
N o t surprisingly, the m eans o f acquiring such a body o f equal
com plexion will be supplied by alchem y. But w hat should be done
21 Theodore Crowley, Roger Bacon: The Problem of the Soul in His Philosophical
Commentaries (Louvain, 1950), p. 104.
22 Bacon, Opus minus, in Brewer, op. cit., p. 369: “Hoc igitur modo bene potest
esse aequalitas pura secundum virtutem et potestatem activam, licet non secundum
quantitatem earum quam medici vocant pondus, sicut erit in corporibus post
resurrectionem. Et ideo non erit aliqua alteratio mixto tali. Nam ubi aequalitas
potentiarum activarum est non potest esse corruptio, secundum Aristotelem secundo
Metaphysicorum. Et secundum Averoym super Decimum. Under Averoys arguit ibi
contra Galienum, qui posuit in homine aliquo complexionem aequalem. Nam tunc
arguit Averoys quod ille esset immortalis, quia non esset actio, nec passio, nec alteratio
talis mixti propter aequalitatem. Et ideo nec corruptio. Causa vero praecisa hujusmodi
rei est quod aequalitas qualitatum elementarium est ultimum quod materia desiderat,
et nobilissimum in mixto unum mixtum est. Et ideo habita aequalitate quiescit
appetitus materiae.”
23 Bacon, Sex scientiarum, p. 184. The same theme is covered also in the Opus
minus, ed. Brewer, pp. 370-375, and in the Opus maius, vol. 2, p. 212.
24 Bacon, Sex scientiarum, p. 183.
25 Bacon, Sex scientiarum, p. 184.
AN OVERVIEW OF ROGER BACON’S ALCHEMY 327
with this body once acquired? B acon argues that the sapientes have
invented “optical instrum ents,” w hich they use to gather the celestial
rays, then projecting these onto food, drink, and drugs. A t the end
o f the Liber Sex scientiarum, he makes it clear that these “optical instru­
m ents” are burning mirrors, w ith w hich he intends to concentrate
the starlight com ing from beneficent celestial bodies:
Therefore when the excellent experimentor has prepared this body of
equal complexion, he commands the astronomer to consider the rising
of the beneficent stars above the horizon at a future time and the
setting of the maleficent stars at that time, and he commands to the
perspectivist that instruments be made with the aid of geometry that
congregate the rays in which the equal body is put, so that, after it has
received the wonderworking powers of the stars, it may wonderfully
remove the defect of a [bad] regimen of life contracted from youth,
and restore all that was lost, and retard the effects of old-age, and
when they do come, mitigate them happily, so that life be prolonged
marvellously.26
N ot only does Bacon claim that this panacea can slow dow n old-age
remarkably, but that it will also rem ove the defects already accum u­
lated by the body. T h e “equal body,” once it has absorbed a suffi­
cient am ount o f “celestial virtue,” will “contain and m ultiply”27 the
stellar rays; it will then be able to propagate species autonom ously,
reproducing the action o f the beneficent celestial bodies w hen these
are not actually in advantageous positions. By this means:
. . . opportune remedies will be found against illnesses, pestilences, fam­
ines, and all evils both of the republic and of individuals. . . ,28
26 Bacon, Sex scientiarum, pp. 184-5: “Cum igitur experimentator magnificus
preparaverit hoc corpus equalis complexionis, iubet astronomo ut ortum stellarum
virtuosarum super orizonta de futuro consideret et occasum stellarum prave actionis
ad illud tempus, et iubet perspective ut cum adiutorio geometrie fiant instrumenta
congregantia radios in quibus ponatur corpus equale, ut, postquam receperit virtutes
mirificas stellarum, possit miro modo tollere defectum regiminis vite contractum a
iuventute et restaurare totum deperditum et retardare passiones senectutis et cum
venerint, eas mitigare feliciter, ut vita mirabiliter prolongetur.”
27 Bacon, Sex scientiarum, p. 185: “Nam cum omnia fiant per virtutem celorum,
congregabimus virtutem stellarum quorumcumque volumus, et res componemus in
loco congregationis que recipiant virtutem celestem quam continebunt et multiplicabunt
a se per actionem naturalem, ut faciant operationes debitas constellationi in absentia
stellarum. . . . ”
28 Ibid., “. . . et sic contra infirmitates et pestilencias et fames et omnia mala
personarum et rei publice inveniantur remedia oportuna, et sic accidit prolongatio
vite sublimius quam per aliquas vias.”

328 WILLIAM R. NEWMAN
Bacon goes on to say that the “philosopher” Artephius managed to
live for 1,025 years by using this method, and that by sitting directly
in the beam of concentrated starlight, one can become wise as well
as healthy; the sapience procured thereby will even allow one to know
all future and past events.29
Despite the fact that Bacon did not think man capable of effecting
a state of such perfect elemental equality as that to be expected after
the resurrection, he did believe that art could attain both the perfect
body of gold and the “equal body” derived from other substances.
In both cases he viewed alchemy as occupying an instrumental role.
Indeed, Bacon’s concern with alchemy was such that he devised actual
recipes for the elixir, and gave explicit instructions for its acquisition.
Although Bacon has been portrayed as an “armchair alchemist,”
concerned with theory alone, the detail and consistency of his recipes
suggests that this view may be mistaken.30
Bacon’s Alchemical Practice
Bacon’s reputation as an alchemist hinges largely on his famous Epistola
de secretis operibus artis et naturae which ends with three alchemical
chapters that describe, in veiled terms, the making of the “philosophical
egg.”31 Although it has been argued by a number of scholars that
these chapters are spurious, they are, as I have shown elsewhere,
quite similar to a partially unprinted section of the Opus minus.32 Indeed,
the chapters take up motifs that are treated throughout Bacon’s work,
and they may well be genuine, or contain genuine scraps reassembled
from Bacon’s work.33 The term “philosophers’ egg” occurs in the
29 Ibid. Nicholas Clulee brings attention to two late French Artephius manu­
scripts held in the Bibiotheque de PArsenal (MSS. 2344 and 3009) in his “At the
Crossroads of Magic and Science: John Dee’s Archemastrie,” in Brian Vickers, ed.,
Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1986), p. 70, n. 38. I am
not convinced that the Artephius to whom Bacon refers is the author of the Clovis
sapientiae majoris published in J J . Manget, Bibliotheca chemica curiosa (Geneva, 1702), I,
pp. 503-9.
30 Singer, “Alchemical Writings,” p. 80, and Muir, pp. 301-302.
31 Bacon, Epistola de secretis operibus artis et naturae, in Opera quaedam inedita, vol. 1,
pp. 545-551.
32 MS. Vaticanus reginensis ff. 109v-110v.
33 Newman, “The Philosophers’ Egg: Theory and Practice in the Alchemy of
Roger Bacon,” Micrologus, 3 (1995), pp. 75-101.
AN OVERVIEW OF ROGER BACON’S ALCHEMY 329
famous Secret of Secrets of pseudo-Aristotle, a work that Bacon held in
the highest regard and even glossed. The Secret of Secrets contains the
following riddle for producing the philosophers’ egg, which is evi­
dently meant to be the “philosophers’ stone,” the agent of metallic
transmutation:
Therefore take the animal, vegetable, and mineral stone, which is not
a stone, and does not have the nature of a stone. This stone is in a
certain way compared to the stones of mountains of minerals, plants,
and animals: it is found in every place, in every time, and in every
man: [it is] changeable into every color: it contains within itself all
elements: and it is called the lesser world. And I will name it by its
own name, by which the crowd names it, that is, the end of the egg,
that is to say, the egg of the philosophers. Therefore divide it into four
parts: each part has one nature. Then unite it equally and proportion­
ally, so that there be neither division nor repugnance in it, and you
will have the goal, God willing.34
Pseudo-Aristotle’s alchemical riddle enjoins that the alchemist should
begin his quest with a stone that contains all the elements, is found
in every man, and is called the lesser world. This stone is to be
divided into four parts, and then reassembled in a proper proportion.
As I shall now show, Bacon used his knowledge of alchemical theory
to solve this riddle in a way that could lead directly to practice.
First, as he informs the reader in his commentary to the Secret of
Secrets, the word “stone,” in alchemy, means “anything upon which
an alchemical operation begins.”35 In interpreting the riddle, then,
Bacon felt no need to limit himself to actual stones, but could employ
anything with which an alchemical process can begin. At this point
Bacon called upon his knowledge of both the genuine and the pseudo-
Avicenna to help him solve the riddle. As we mentioned above,
Avicenna’s Canon teaches the separation of four humors out of blood,
34 Bacon, Secretum secretorum, Robert Steele, ed., Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconis
(Oxford, 1920), vol. 5, pp. 114—115: “Accipe ergo lapidem animalem, vegetabilem,
et mineralem, qui non est lapis, nec habet naturam lapidis. Et iste lapis assimilatur
quodammodo lapidibus moncium minerarum, et plantarum, et animalium: Et reperitur
in quolibet loco et in quolibet tempore et in quolibet homine: Et convertabilis est in
quemlibet colorem: Et in se continet omnia elementa: Et dicitur minor mundus. Et
ego nominabo ipsum nomine suo quo nominat vulgus, scilicet, terminus ovi, hoc est
dicere, ovum philosophorum. Divide ergo ipsum in quatuor partes: quelibet pars
habet unam naturam. Deinde compone ipsum equaliter et proporcionaliter, ita quod
non sit in eo divisio nec repugnancia, et habebis propositum, Domino concedente.”
35 Ibid., p. 117, n. 1: “Lapis igitur sumitur primo metaphorice pro omni eo super
quo incipit operacio alkimie.”
 330 WILLIAM R. NEWMAN
and each of these humors can be named after the element that pre­
dominates in it. Therefore blood would certainly be an obvious candi­
date for something that contains all four elements. Blood, moreover,
is surely found “in every man,” and if we are talking about human
blood, then it would certainly make sense to refer to the philoso­
phers’ egg as “the lesser world,” since as Bacon admitted in a pas­
sage cited above, man is a microcosm. Bacon was helped along in
this interpretation of the philosophers’ egg by a passage from pseudo-
Avicenna’s De anima, which explicitly identifies the subject of this riddle
with human blood:
Take the stone which is not a stone, and is not of the nature of stones:
divide it into four parts— air, fire, earth, and water, and we find no
other way that this can be done except in the following mode: man
lives dies, and subsists on account of [his] blood. Thus the stone: there­
fore they say that this stone is the animal stone, and therefore, because
there is no higher soul than [that in] man, they take the stone of
man. . . . The blood necessary in this work is [that] of man: because
the soul of man is better than that of all other [animals], and because
the body of sol and luna is better than all others, we therefore take the
blood of man, which is a soul, because the soul of man is blood, and
the blood is soul, and therefore the stone is called “animal.”36
Pseudo-Avicenna openly equates the “stone which is not a stone,”
the philosophical egg of the Secret of Secrets, with human blood. This
must be divided into parts, just as in pseudo-Aristotle. In pseudo-
Avicenna’s De anima this division is then openly equated with the
separation of the elements that the text prescribed for apples, milk,
and other substances by means of stratification and distillation. Bacon
therefore could invoke the authority of both the genuine and the
pseudonymous Avicenna in support of his view that the philosophers’
egg referred to human blood, which had to be divided into its four
parts, the simple humors. Bacon’s commentary on the Secret of Secrets
then proceeds to detail a recipe for the philosophers’ stone or elixir,
36 Pseudo-Avicenna, De anima, pp. 275-276: “Accipe de petra quae non est petra, &
non est de naturis petrae, divide per 4. partes, per aerem & ignem, & terram,
& aquam, & nos non possumus invenire quod aliter fieri possit, nisi in hunc modum: &
de sanguine vivit homo, & moritur & stat. Ita de lapide: ideo dicunt, quod iste lapis
est lapis animalis: & ideo, quia non est anima altior homine: ideo accipiunt lapidem
hominis. . . . [p. 397:] Sanguis necessarius in magisterio est hominis: & quia hominis
anima est melior omnibus, & quia corpus solis & lunae est omnibus melius, ideo
mittimus sanguinem hominis, qui est anima, quia hominis anima est sanguis, &
sanguis est anima: & ideo vocatur lapis animalis.”
AN OVERVIEW OF ROGER BACON’S ALCHEMY 331
employing these divided parts of the philosophers’ egg. The alche­
mist should begin with human blood:
in which the four humors, namely phlegm, choler, blood, and melan­
choly, are distinguished by the eye. The alchemist seeks to separate
these humors from one another and to purge each from the other.
When they have been led back to their pure simplicities by means of
difficult works, then they should be mixed in a secret and most sure
proportion. Quicksilver is added to them after it has been mortified
and sublimed multiply. Likewise the calx or powder of the baser metal
from which the nobler will be made. Likewise [calx of] the nobler.
Then they should be incorporated together until they make one body.
This is then projected onto the liquefied baser metal, and it thus becomes
nobler.37
This blueprint for an alchemical elixir is repeated in various forms
at other points in Bacon’s works.38 One must begin with stratified
blood, whose phlegm, choler, blood, and melancholy are then sepa­
rated and purified. These must then be recombined in a secret pro­
portion, mixed with purified mercury, the calx of a base metal, and
the calx of a noble metal. The resulting elixir can then be used as
a means of transmuting base metals. It is evident that Bacon has
combined the practice of pseudo-Avicenna with his own belief that
the alchemist must operate on a corpus equate: this is the significance
of the secret proportion alluded to above. And it would appear that
Bacon believed his mercurial medicine to be applicable not only to
the imperfect metals, but to ailing humans as well. In the short treat­
ment of alchemy that Bacon gives in his Opus maius, he claims that
the Secret of Secrets’ riddle about the philosophical egg reveals both
the secret of metallic transmutation and the means of prolonging
human life to its utmost:
37 Bacon, Secretum secretorum, p. 117, n. 1: “Lapis igitur sumitur primo metaphorice
pro omni eo super quo incipit operacio alkimie. Et hoc potest esse res mineralis, ut
sulphur et arsenicum, set melior est res vegetabilis ut fructus et partes arborum et
herbarum, optime vero sunt res animales ut sanguis ovum et capilli, et maxime
partes hominis, et inter illas sanguis, in quo ad oculum distinguntur quatuor humores,
scilicet, fleuma, colera, sanguis, et melancolia. Alkimista igitur querit separare hos
humores abinvicem et purgare quemhbet a quolibet. Et cum per difficilia opera
fuerint redacta ad puras simplicitates suas, tunc commiscentur secreta proporcione
et certissima, quibus additur argentum vivum postquam mortificatum fuerit et
sublimatum pluries. Similiter calx sive pulvis metalli vihoris de quo fiet nobilius. Et
similiter nobilioris. Et post hec incorporentur adinvicem donee fiant unum corpus.
Et tunc proicitur in metallum vilius liquatum et fit nobilius.”
38 Roger Bacon, Part of the Opus tertium of Roger Bacon, ed. A.G. Little (Aberdeen:
The University Press, 1912) p. 88.

332 WILLIAM R. NEWMAN
Aristotle said to Alexander—“I wish to show you the greatest secret;”
and indeed it is the greatest secret, for not only would it procure the
good of the republic and something desired by all by providing enough
gold, but what is infinitely greater, it would prolong human life. For
that medicine which would take away all dirtiness and corruptions of a
base metal, so that it become very pure silver and gold, is considered by
the wise to be able to take away the corruptions of the human body
to the degree that life would be prolonged through many centuries.39
One can see then that Bacon’s theory of the corpus equale allowed
him to link the metallurgical transmutation of such texts as the De
anima of pseudo-Avicenna and the alchemy of pseudo-Razf with his
macrobiotic program. In either case the same subject was required—
a body that was perfecdy tempered in regard to its elemental quali­
ties. Such a subject had the power to impart its own incorruptibility
to other matter—be it metal or flesh—and to end the incessant warfare
among the unequally powerful elemental qualities hitherto resident
therein. As we know from the Liber sex scientiarum, this power could
be heightened even further by subjecting the corpus equale to celestial
influences that had been magnified by means of burning mirrors. In
the final section of this essay we shall consider the place of Bacon’s
remarkable theory within the context of contemporary alchemy.
Bacon’s Alchemy in Context
It is instructive to compare Bacon’s alchemical program with those
of other writers on the same subject who were also active in the
second half of the thirteenth century. O f these the two most influential
were surely Albertus Magnus, whose De mineralibus was written between
1250 and 1254, and the author of the Summa perfectionis, who called
himself “Geber,” and wrote around the end of the century.40 Albert’s
39 John Henry Bridges, ed., The “Opus mains” o f Roger Bacon (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1897): vol. 2, p. 215 “.. . Aristoteles dixit ad Alexandrum ‘volo ostendere
secretum maximum’; et vere est secretum maximum, nam non solum procuraret
bonum reipublicae et omnibus desideratum propter auri sufficientiam, sed quod plus
est in infinitum, daret prolongationem vitae. Nam ilia medicina, quae tolleret omnes
immunditias et corruptiones metalli vilioris, ut fieret argentum et aurum purum,
aestimatur a sapientibus posse tollere corruptiones corporis humani in tantum, ut
vitam per multa secula prolongaret. Et hoc est corpus ex elementis temperatum, de
quo prius dictum est.”
40 William Newman, “New Light on the Identity of Geber,” in Sudhoffs Archiv, 69
(1985), pp. 76-90; Newman, “The Genesis of the Summa perfectionis,” in Archives
AN OVERVIEW OF ROGER BACON’S ALCHEMY 333
De mineralibus is not an alchemical text proper, in that it does not
have alchemical praxis as its goal. Indeed, Albert wrote the work as
a mineralogical supplement to the corpus of Aristotle, which he found
deficient in that area. All the same, Albert does defend alchemical
transmutation, arguing that good alchemists act towards metals just
as physicians do toward their patients.41 The alchemists first clean
and purify the old metal, just as doctors employ emetics and dia­
phoretics as purges. Then they strengthen the “elemental and celes­
tial powers” in the metal’s substance, primarily by adding drug-like
components and heat. In all this the alchemist must copy nature’s
methods very closely, using fire to achieve the effects of the stars,
and even modelling his vessels on the presumed shape of the subter­
ranean caverns in which metals and ores are generated. By this means,
Albert argues, the alchemist can make art act as an instrument of
nature, so that the gold or silver produced will be a true natural
product, not a mere human artifact.
Albert’s alchemical theory, which is closely based on the Aristote­
lian idea that art can perfect what nature has left incomplete (.Physics
ii.8.199a) is radically different from that of Bacon. First, although
Albert draws a parallel between medicinal cures and the perfection
of base metals, this is for him only a linguistic commonality. There
is never any question in the De mineralibus of alchemical “medicines”
actually being used to cure ailing humans: his medicines are for metals
alone. Hence the medical and macrobiotic aspect of Bacon’s alchemy
is completely absent from Albert’s work. Second, Roger’s belief that
alchemy should operate by producing a corpus equale from the sepa­
rated and purified humors derived from human blood finds no par­
allel in the De mineralibus. Indeed, Albert’s insistence on following the
generative methods of nature would seem a priori to exclude such
operations from his canon of accepted techniques. Nature does not
make the precious metals by separating human blood, so why should
the alchemist?
The same emphasis on following the methods of nature can be
found in the Summa perfectionis of “Geber,” and it is quite likely, as I
intemationales d’histoire des sciences, 35 (1985), pp. 240-302. For Albert, see Robert Halleux,
“Albert le grand et ralchimie,” in Revue des sciences phibsophiques et theologiques 66 (1982),
pp. 57-80. See also Newman, The Summa perfectionis of pseudo-Geber (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1991), pp. 17-20.
41 Albertus Magnus, Liber mineralium, in Auguste Borgnet, ed., B. Alberti M agni. . .
Opera Omnia (Paris, 1890), vol. 5 pp. 70-71.
 334 WILLIAM R. NEWMAN
have argued elsewhere, that its author was influenced by Albert.42
But the Summa goes even further than the De mineralibus, for it pro­
scribes all “organic” reagents such as blood, hair, and urine, and
restricts the ingredients of the philosophers’ stone to mercury, sulfur,
and “arsenic,” the presumed components out of which nature fashions
the metals. This again is an attempt to model alchemical techniques
on the generative methods of nature, using the same ingredients as
does she. And like Albert, “Geber” avoids the pharmaceutical appli­
cation of his elixirs, although he too calls them “medicines.” Finally,
the Summa avoids all attempts to arrive at a proper tempering of
elemental qualities: the very discussion of such qualities is largely
absent from the work. Instead, the theory behind “Geber’s” proc­
esses is driven by a corpuscular view. The author believes that the
metals are made up of minute corpuscles which diminish in size with
the perfection of the metal. Hence his major goal is the acquisition
of an exceedingly subtle medicine whose particles can penetrate to
the profundity of a base metal and bond therewith. Needless to say,
this is utterly distinct from the alchemical theory of Roger Bacon.
As Lynn Thorndike remarked in his History of Magic and Experimen­
tal Science, the dominant alchemical theory of the fourteenth century
maintained that transmutation should proceed by means of “mer­
cury alone.”43 The “mercury alone” theory informs the works of
Amald of Villanova, John Dastin, Bernard of Trier, and others. An
analysis of these authors and their sources has allowed me to deter­
mine elsewhere that they are all heavily dependant on the Summa
perfectionis of “Geber.”44 It was “Geber,” not Roger Bacon, who pro­
vided the dominant alchemical theory of the late Middle Ages. On
the other hand, it is true that the fourteenth century witnessed the
wide dispersion of a genuine medical alchemy in the form of the
Liber de consideratione quinte essentie omnium rerum of the well-known
Franciscan prophet John of Rupescissa.45 But Rupescissa’s medical
agenda is significantly different from Bacon’s, and he seems to have
developed his alchemical medicine quite independently.46 All of this
42 Newman, The Summa perfectionis o f pseudo-Geber, pp. 215-223.
43 Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magee and Experimental Science (New York: Colum­
bia University Press, 1934), vol. 3, p. 58.
44 Newman, The Summa perfectionis of pseudo-Geber, pp. 193-208.
45 Robert Halleux, “Les ouvrages alchimiques de Jean de Rupescissa,” in Histoire
litteraire de la France (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1981), vol. 41, pp. 241-284.
46 Ibid., pp. 250, 253, 256, 266-267.
AN OVERVIEW OF ROGER BACON S ALCHEMY 335
is not to say that Bacon was without influence, of course, for Thorndike
and Kibre list some thirty alchemical incipits associated with Bacon’s
name, many of these surely by his followers. But among such
“Baconian” works there are few that betray a genuine knowledge of
Roger’s alchemy.47 It seems, rather, that his was a name to conjure
with, at least in alchemical circles, and that this conjuration was based
on hearsay rather than close analysis of his genuine views. But it
remains to be said that Roger Bacon’s bold synthesis of alchemy and
medicine, in which both are subordinate to scientia experimental, was
a significant novelty for its time, and if it did not have a major impact,
it did at least foreshadow the development of a medical alchemy in
the following century.
Bibliography
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Opera Omnia (Paris, 1890), vol. 5.
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l’alchimie,” in La science de la nature: theories et pratiques. Cahiers d'etudes medievales,
II (Paris, 1974), pp. 97-106.
Anawati, Georges C., “Avicenne et l’alchimie,” Oriente e occidente nel medioevo:
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cum diligentia Lmpressus (Hildesheim: Olms, 1964. Reprint of Venice, 1507).
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GEBER, HOC Volumine Continentur. Quorum alter nunquam hactenus in
lucem prodijt: alter vero vestutis exemplaribus collatus, atque elegantioribus & pluribus
fguris quam antehac illustratus, doctrinae huius professoribus, hac nostra editione turn
iucundior turn utilior evasit Adiecto Indice rerum & verborum copioso. Cum
gratia & prwilegio. Basileae per petrum pemam M.D. LXXII.
Bacon, Roger, Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, Robert Steele, ed., (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1905-).
------ , Opera quaedam hactenus inedita, J.S. Brewer, ed., (London: Longman,
Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1859).
------ , pseudo-, Sanioris medicinae D. Rogeri Baconis Angli. . . Francojurti, Typis
Johannis Saurii, Sumptibus Loannis Theobaldi Schonvvetteri, Anno M.DCLLL.
Bignami-Odier, “Jean de Roquetaillade,” in Histoire litteraire de la France (Paris:
Imprimerie nationale, 1981), vol. 41, pp. 75-240.
47 One obvious exception to this ignorance is found in the Tres epistolae attrib­
uted to Bacon. But as I have argued elsewhere, that too is probably a forgery. See
Newman, “The Alchemy of Roger Bacon and the Tres epistolae Attributed to Him,”
pp. 471-479.
 336 WILLIAM R. NEWMAN
Brehm, Edmund, “Roger Bacon’s Place in the History of Alchemy,” Ambix,
23 (1976), pp. 53-57.
Bridges, John Henry, ed., The “Opus maius” of Roger Bacon (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1897).
Getz, Faye Marie, “To Prolong Life and Promote Health: Baconian Alchemy
and Pharmacy in the English Learned Tradition,” in Sheila Campbell,
et al., Health, Disease and Healing in Medieval Culture (London: Macmillan,
1992).
Halleux, Robert, “Les ouvrages alchimiques de Jean de Rupescissa,” in Histoire
litteraire de la France (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1981), vol. 41, pp. 241—
284.
Hime, H.W.L., “Roger Bacon and Gunpowder,” in A.G. Little, Roger Bacon
Essays (Oxford, 1914), pp. 321-335.
Linden, Stanton J., “Roger Bacon in the Age of Francis: The mirror ofalchimy
and the mirror o f nature,” in Cauda Pavonis, 10 (1991), pp. 10-13.
Newman, William R., “The Philosophers’ Egg: Theory and Practice in the
Alchemy of Roger Bacon,” Micrologus, 3 (1995), pp. 75-101.
-, “The Alchemy of Roger Bacon and the Tres epistolae Attributed to
Him,” in Comprendre et maxtriser la nature au moyen age (Geneva: Librairie
Droz, 1994), pp. 461-479.
------ , The Summa perfectionis of pseudo-Geber (Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1991).
Paravicini Bagliani, Agostino, “Storia della scienza e storia della mentalita:
Ruggero Bacone, Bonifacio VIII e la teoria della prolongatio vitae,” in
Aspetti della letteratura latina nel secolo XIII (Firenze: La Nuova Italia,
1986), pp. 243-280.
Pattison Muir, M.M., “Roger Bacon: His Relations to Alchemy and Chem­
istry,” in A.G. Little, Roger Bacon Essays (Oxford, 1914), pp. 285-320.
Pelzer, Auguste, “Une source inconnue de Roger Bacon,” Archwumfranascanum
historicum, Annus XII, Fasc. I—II, pp. 44-67.
Pereira, Michela, I’oro dei filosojv saggio sulle idee di un alchimista del trecento (Spoleto:
Centro Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1992), pp. 43-83.
Ruska, Julius, “Die Alchemie des Avicenna,” Isis, 21 (1934), pp. 14-51.
------ , “Pseudepigraphe Rasis-Schriften, ” in Osiris, 1 (1939), pp. 31-94.
Singer, Dorothea Waley, “Alchemical Writings Attributed to Roger Bacon,”
Speculum, 1 (1932), pp. 80-86.
Stapleton, H.E., et al, “Two Alchemical Treatises Attributed to Avicenna,”
Ambix, 10 (1962), pp. 41-82.
14. ROGER BACON AND MEDICINE: THE
PARADOX OF TH E FORBIDDEN FRUIT AND THE
SECRETS OF LONG LIFE
Faye Getz
Roger Bacon was not a physician, but in his own opinion, and in
the opinion of men who took him seriously, he was something better:
an interpreter of nature’s signs, a fierce advocate of simplicity over
complexity, of openness over obscurity, and most of all, of proper
medicine—a return to a pristine state of long life and pure language,
once known to the patriarchs but now lost in a Babel of decayed
tongues and Original Sin. If Bacon appeared to patriotic alchemists
an English Hermes Trismegestus, then he seems also to have been
England’s very own Pliny, with an encyclopedic knowledge of the
secrets of nature and a cranky old man’s nostalgia for better times.
What the Roman Republic was for Pliny, just so the glory days of
the Old Testament were for Bacon. Similarly, as the paterfamilias super­
vised the physical and spiritual needs of his family and his slaves,
so the Old Testament patriarch looked out for the members of his
household, a task requiring several species of potency bitterly lamented
in Bacon’s own less-virile times. Bacon like Pliny held “professional”
physicians in similar contempt to John of Salisbury for lawyers
physicians were money-grubbing, dependent, and ignorant. A properly-
educated patrician knew how to run his household without asking
any “experts,” save his fellow patriarchs, and it was medicine as part
of a general knowledge of the natural world, not medicine as an
intellectual speciality, that Bacon advocated so strenuously. The scope
of Bacon’s medical writings is narrow—confined by and large to
restoring the vitality of old men—and his knowledge of his subject
very limited, especially as compared to the titans of medical scholas­
ticism writing in Italy at the same time. But Bacon, or rather the
image of Bacon, was dear to the hearts of the English, who magni­
fied his work almost beyond reason, and followed his interest in
medical restoration into the fifteenth century and beyond.1
1 See George Molland, “Roger Bacon and the Hermetic Tradition in Medieval

338 FAYE GETZ
Encyclopedic or Natural Historical Medicine
Long before the Norman Conquest, Christian missionaries and their
followers brought the Latin encyclopedic tradition to England. Roman
patricians like the elder Cato and Pliny the elder wrote about medi­
cine as part of the sort of knowledge the paterfamilias (patriarch of a
country estate, of his family, his servants, animals, and slaves) ought
to have. For these men, simple remedies were part of traditional
learning about estate management. These writers were aware of the
accomplishments of Greek philosophical physicians, but found their
concern with the body excessive, even effeminate. In Pliny’s encyclo­
pedic Historia Naturalis, the writer denounced the repellent foreign
ways of Greek medicine and their malign effects on once-great Rome:
“It is certainly true that our degeneracy, due to medicine more than
to anything else, proves daily that Cato was a genuine prophet and
oracle when he stated that it is enough to dip into the works of
Greek brains without making a close study of them.”2 Pliny’s own
remedies were above all things simple, based on nature lore and
Roman tradition. We would call them folk medicine, old wives’ tales,
or even magic,3 and yet they are some of the most respected records
of written medicine that survive in western Europe.4
Science,” Vivarium 31 (1993) 140-60 and The Mirror o f Alchimy: Composed by the Tkrice-
Famous and Learned Fryer, Roger Bachon, ed. Stanton J. Linden, (New York, 1992).
2 Pliny, Natural History, with an English Translation in Ten Volumes, vol. 8: libri xxviii-
xxxii, trans. W.H.S. Jones, Loeb Classical Library, (Cambridge, 1975), 201 (Latin
on p. 200); Faye Marie Getz, “To Prolong Life and Promote Health: Baconian
Alchemy and Pharmacy in the English Learned Tradition,” in Health, Disease and
Healing in Medieval Culture, ed. Sheila Campbell, Bert Hall and David Klausner (New
York, 1992) 143. On Pliny’s encyclopedia, and on his views of Greek physicians, see
Roger French, Ancient Natural History: Histories of Nature (London, 1994), 223-5.
3 Pliny’s ideas about the differences between natural and supernatural phenom­
ena are not our own. He cautioned against the use of “portentous magic” (magica
portenta) in remedies but assigned to peony the property of preventing “the mocking
delusions that the Fauns bring on us in our sleep”: Pliny, Natural History, With an
English Translation in Ten Volumes, vol. vii: libri xxiv-xxvii, trans. W.H.S. Jones, Loeb
Classical Library (Cambridge, 1966), 154—7.
4 On medieval encyclopedias in general and the survival of Pliny’s in particular,
see Maijorie Chibnall, “Pliny’s Natural History and the Middle Ages,” in Empire and
Aftermath: Silver Latin II, ed. T.A. Dorey (London, 1975), 57-78; and Texts and, Trans­
mission: A Survey o f the Latin Classics, ed. L.D. Reynolds (Oxford, 1983), 307-16. O n
the humanistic aspects of this reverence for Pliny and the Latin language, see Jerome
L. Bylebyl, “Medicine, Philosophy, and Humanism in Renaissance Italy,” in Science
and the Arts in the Renaissance, ed. John W. Shirley and F. David Hoeniger (Washington,
D.C., 1985), 27-49, esp. 35. O n the medieval tradition of paterfamiliar literature,
ROGER BACON AND MEDICINE 339
The disregard Romans like Cato and Pliny had for what they felt
to be excessive bodily concerns, the respect for communal life, their
nostalgia for better times, and the reverence they held for the aged
man ran against Greek notions of progress5 and Greek idealization
of the young male athlete, the latter an obsession Pliny thought would
lead to degeneracy of the worst sort. Indeed, it is remarkable that,
while Greek thinkers included gymnastics among the liberal arts, the
activities proper to a gentleman, the Romans typically left gymnas­
tics out.6
During the social and cultural disorganization that accompanied
the decline of Roman authority in the west, much of the Roman
encyclopedic tradition perished. Celsus and Varro, who included a
large amount of medical material in their encyclopedias, were lost,
or nearly so.7 But Pliny, Latin compilations of late antiquity like the
works of Boethius, Martianus Capella, and Macrobius, and a host of
anonymous texts attributed to various ancients, survived, especially in
monastic communities,8*where Roman ideas about simple medicines,
Stoic retirement, communal living under a male leader, and disinterest
see Volker Zimmermann, Rezeption und Rolle der Heilkunde in landessprachigen handschrifilichen
Kompendien des Spatmittelalters (Stuttgart, 1986), esp. “Die Rezeption der Heilkunde aus
den Kompendien in die ‘Hausvaterliteratur,’” 120-6.
5 T hat physicians of the past knew less than their successors was stressed by the
Hippocratic text “The Science of Medicine,” in Hippocratic Writings, ed. G.E.R. Lloyd
(New York, 1978), 139-47. On the complexities of medieval ideas of medical progress,
see Chiara Crisciani, “History, Novelty, and Progress in Scholastic Medicine,” Osiris
6 (1990) 118-39. On Bacon’s own ideas of scientific progress, see David C. Lindberg,
“Science as Handmaiden: Roger Bacon and the Patristic Tradition,” Isis 78 (1987)
518-36.
6 Paul Abelson, The Seven Liberal Arts: A Study in Mediaeval Culture (New York, 1906,
reissued 1965), 1-10. A more thorough study with citations from primary sources is
Friedmar Kuhnert, Allgemeinbildung und Fachbildung in der Antike (Berlin, 1961); also
M.L. Clarke, Higher Education in the Ancient World (London, 1971), esp. 109-18.
7 On the medicine of Varro and Celsus as “part of the general knowledge that
every true paterfamilias was supposed to possess,” see H.I. Marrou, History of Education
in Antiquity, trans. George Lamb (New York, 1956), 254.
8 C.H. Talbot, Medicine in Medieval England (London, 1967), 9-23; Nancy G. Siraisi,
Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago,
1990), 6-11; in England, Brian Lawn, The Salernitan Questions (Oxford, 1963); M.L.
Cameron, “The Sources of Medical Knowledge in Anglo-Saxon England,” Anglo-
Saxon England 11 (1983) 135-55. Cameron called attention to a number of writings
that could have been known in English monastic libraries by the middle of the
eighth century, including Latin epitomes of Dioscorides, Oribasius, and Alexander
of Tralles, as well as the Latin writers Marcellus of Bordeaux, Cassius Felix, Caelius
Aurelianus, Pliny, and Isidore of Seville: pp. 137-42.
 340 FAYE GETZ
in material wealth found a happy home. Most notable of these monas­
tic retreats were on the Benedictine model at Vivarium near Rome,
where the senator Cassiodorus, who flourished under the barbarian
emperor Theodoric, retired from public life in 540. Cassiodorus
ordered his monks to learn about medicinal herbs, and he had a
number of medical texts copied, including works attributed (perhaps
wrongly) to Galen, Hippocrates, and the pharmacist Dioscorides.9
Monastic medicine, which predated the growth of scholastic medi­
cine at the universities and continued alongside it, is usually referred
to by historians as “Methodist,” because it concentrated not on the
causes or etiology of disease but on therapeutic methods, or “pre-
Salemitan,” because it was the only form of learned medicine known
in the west before the introduction of Arabic learning to the west at
Salerno in the late eleventh century.10 To these useful descriptive
terms might be added “Stoic,” because the “theory” of this type of
medicine was that God had offered pharmaceutical remedies from
nature, thus giving nature itself a type of divinity; or “natural histori­
cal” and “encyclopedic,” because the job of the learned man was to
collect and research these remedies from any number of sources.11
The encyclopedia had an especially strong tradition in England.
The Venerable Bede wrote his De natura rerum in the opening years
of the eighth century based on Pliny and Isidore of Seville. It was
created as a teaching text, presenting knowledge of the natural world
as part of an exegesis of the Hexaemeron (six days of Creation).12
Bede’s fellow missionizing Anglo-Saxons assembled medical com­
9 Cassiodori Senatoris Institutiones, ed. R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1937), pp. 78-9 (Book
I, chapter xxxi), relevant parts translated in Talbot, Medicine, pp. 13-4; also Anne F.
Dawtry, “The Modus Medendi and the Benedictine Order in Anglo-Norman England,”
Studies in Church History 19 (1982) 25-38.
10 For example, Danielle Jacquart, “The Introduction of Arabic Medicine into
the West: The Question of Etiology,” in Campbell, Hall, and Klausner, Health, Dis­
ease and Healing, pp. 186-95. On Salerno, see H. Bloch, Monte Cassino in the Middle
Ages (Cambridge, 1980), 1:98-110, 127-36.
11 On the divinity of nature in Hippocrates and Galen, see Owsei Temltin, Hippoc­
rates in a World of Pagans and Christians (Baltimore: 1991), 189-96; on natural and
supernatural causes of disease, see G.E.R. Lloyd, Magic, Reason and Experience: Studies
in the Origin and Development of Greek Science (Cambridge, 1979), esp. 49-57. On Pliny’s
Stoicism and the divinity of nature, French, Ancient Natural History, pp. 198-206.
12 Bedae Venerabilis Opera: Pars VI, Opera Didascalica, 1, ed. Charles W. Jones (Cor­
pus Christianorum Series Latina, vol. 123A, 1975), 174, 187, xi. Bede did not treat
medicine per se, only plague, which he considered among meteorological phenom­
ena: p. 233 (chapter 37).
341
ROGER BACON AND MEDICINE
pendia in their vernacular, Old English, as well as in Latin.13 Alexander
Nequam (d. 1217), a teacher and later an Austin Canon, wrote an
encyclopedia De naturis rerum, with medical material taken from
Salernitan sources.14 More popular than any of these was the De
proprietatibus rerum (On the properties of things) of Bacon’s older
Franciscan brother Bartholomaeus Anglicus. Bartholomew’s encyclo­
pedia was an aid to the study of the Bible, and it explored such
diverse topics the creation of angels, the properties of the soul, the
names of plants and animals, the duties of each member of a house­
hold, and medicine.
Bartholomew’s original Latin has not been well studied, but a
Middle English translation of his encyclopedia, made by John Trevisa
at the end of the fourteenth century, was the subject of a critical edi­
tion.15 The editors have demonstrated in a volume on Bartholomew’s
sources published subsequently to the edition that the author was
bom in England before 1200 and studied first at Oxford, then at
Paris. He wrote his encyclopedia probably about 1245 while a teacher
of his fellow friars at Magdeburg in Saxony.16
Bartholomew’s medical sources were those commonly known both
at Oxford and at Paris. The most important were the translations/
adaptations made by Constantine the African of writings in Arabic
by tenth-century authors, including the Pantegni (by al-Majusi, called
in Latin Haly Abbas) and the Viaticum (by Ibn al-Jazzar).17*The medical
material in the encyclopedia is concentrated in Books IV through
VII, although other books also contain information on the human
body and on medicinal substances (Book III on the senses, Books
13 See above Cameron, “Sources of Medical Knowledge,” for the Latin tradition;
Linda E. Voigts, “Anglo-Saxon Plant Remedies and the Anglo-Saxons,” Isis 70 (1979)
250-68 is the best source for the Old English tradition.
14 “The Scientist,” in The Schools and the Cloister: The Life and Writings of Alexander
Nequam (1157-1217), R.W. Hunt, ed. and rev. Margaret Gibson (Oxford, 1984),
67-83; manuscripts and printed excerpts 134-6.
15 On the Properties of Things: John Treviso’s Translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus De
Proprietatibus Rerum, A Critical Text, 3 vols., ed. M.C. Seymour et al. (Oxford, 1975
1988). These editors use the Frankfurt 1601 printed edition of De Proprietatibus Return
(Frankfurt a.M., 1964).
16 M.C. Seymour and Colleagues, Bartholomaeus Anglicus and his Encyclopedia (Aldershot,
1992) 10. This book provides further endnotes to those supplied in vol. iii of On the
Properties of Things.
17 M.C. Seymour, Bartholomaeus Anglicus and his Encyclopedia, pp. 23-5; F.M. Getz,
“The Faculty of Medicine before 1500,” in The History of the University of Oxford, vol. 2:
Late Medieval Oxford, ed. J.I. Catto and Ralph Evans (Oxford, 1992), 376.
 342 FAYE GETZ
X VI-XVIII on stones, animals and plants, and Book XIX on foods
and tastes). Bacon, then, had Roman, late antique, Anglo-Saxon,
Norman, and early Franciscan English examples of an encyclopedic
or natural historical approaches to the organization of medical knowl­
edge, and added to that new medical material emerging from trans­
lations of Arabic sources.
Medical Scholasticism and its Critics
Pliny drew his medical knowledge from books18 and so did Bacon.
Bacon’s medical template, as it were, is well-known—the Sectretum
Secretorum—which he believed along with his contemporaries to be
the genuine advice of Aristotle to the then-ruler of the known world,
Alexander the Great.19 Bacon’s swoonings over this fascinating piece
of Arabic pseudographia are widely attested and will not be repeated
here.20 The Secretum’s significance for Bacon’s medicine is the role
model for proper practice he saw in what he thought was the work
of the Philosopher ipsissimus.
How different learned medicine might have been if Aristotle—
himself the son of a court physician—actually had written a work
precisely on that subject; but that did not happen, and the medi­
cally-minded were sore taxed to make do.21 Bacon fell to this task
with enthusiasm, but instead of embracing Hippocrates and Galen
and applying Aristode’s methodology to them as the Schoolmen were
doing under the spell of Ibn Sina,22 Bacon followed another, older
tradition. He did not reject new translations of Arabic medical and
18 For an exploration of Pliny’s methodology of “text criticizing text,” see G.E.R.
Lloyd, Science, Folklore and Ideology (Cambridge, 1983), 149.
19 The work, author Islamic but otherwise unknown, dates in all likelihood from
the middle of the tenth century: Pseudo-Aristotle, The Secret of Secrets, ed W.F. Ryan
and Charles B. Schmitt (London, 1982), 1; also the extremely useful Middle English
edition, Secretum Secretorum: Nine English Versions, ed. M.A. Manzalaoui, Early English
Text Society 276 (1977) ix.
20 Bacon’s glossing of the Secretum is in Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, ed.
R. Steele et al. (16 vols Oxford [1905/9]-1940) 5.
21 For a study of what little he did write, see Diego Gracia, “The Structure of Medi­
cal Knowledge in Aristotle’s Philosophy,” Sudhoffs Archio 62 (1978) 1-36. Also, C.B.
Schmitt, “Aristotle among the Physicians,” in The Medical Renaissance of the Sixteenth
Century, ed. A. Wear, R.K. French, and I.M. Lonie (Cambridge, 1985), 1-15.
22 For example, Bacon’s near-contemporary, Gilbertus Anglicus, whose Compen­
dium medicinae was among the first major medical texts to use Ibn Sina: Gilbertus
ROGER BACON AND MEDICINE 343
pharmaceutical works, but chose to promulgate the idea that this
was only a part of learned philosophical advice about the nature of
the good life. Whereas physicians at the University of Paris, an insti­
tution whose teachings Bacon of course knew, were anxious that their
discipline have its own graduate faculty like the laws and theology,23
Bacon threw in his lot with Paris’s critics, like Bernard of Clairvaux
over a century before him. The monk Bernard had warned the reli­
gious against medical specialization and resort to medical doctors
because such vanities divorced godly learning from its spiritual roots.24
Bacon’s views on medicine seem more like those of Peter of Blois,
student of John of Salisbury, who saw the growth of the professions
and their perceived divorce from the improving influence of the
undergraduate liberal arts as a threat to moral and philosophical order,
and wanted, with Hugh of St Victor, to keep medicine filed under
the mechanical arts where they asserted it belonged.25
In the Secretum, Bacon thought he saw Aristotle the philosopher
directing his aristocratic patron’s regimen or daily routine—the so-
called non-naturals: sleep and wakefulness, evacuation and retention,
food and drink, motion and rest, condition of the air, and state of
the emotions, the regulation of which would prolong man’s life to its
natural extent.26 Aristotle was Alexander’s own countryman and not
a foreigner, acting as his moderate, moral, and educated advisor,
just as the faithful had read in Deuteronomy 17 and 18 and as John
of Salisbury had noted in his Policraticus.27 If the Secretum did not answer
Anglicus, Compendium medicine (Lyons, 1510); Healing and Society in Medieval England: A
Middle English Translation of the Pharmaceutical Writings of Gilbertus Anglicus, ed. Faye
Marie Getz (Madison, 1991).
23 In general, Pearl Kibre, “The Faculty of Medicine at Paris, Charlatanism, and
Unlicensed Medical Practices in the Later Middle Ages,” in Legacies in Law and Medicine,
ed. Chester R. Bums (New York, 1977), 52-71.
24 Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine, p. 14.
25 For Bernard, Peter and Hugh on the university and on the professions, see
Stephen C. Ferruolo, The Origins o f the University: The Schools o f Paris and their Critics
(Stanford, 1985), 34, 47-8, especially “The Humanists,” 131-83.
26 “Ars medicinalis remedium non habet nisi regimen sanitatis. Est autem ulterior longae vitae
extensio possibilis .. . regimen sanitatis debeat esse in cibo et potu, somno et vigilia, motu et quiete,
evacuatione et retentione, aeris dispositione, et passionibus animi”: The Opus majus o f Roger Bacon,
ed. John Henry Bridges (2 vols. Oxford, 1897, suppl vol. London, Oxford, and
Edinburgh, 1900) 2:204; L.J. Rather, ‘“ The Six Things Non-Natural’: A Note on
the Origins and Fate of a Doctrine and a Phrase,” Clio Medica 3 (1968) 337-47;
Shulamith Shahar, “The Old Body in Medieval Culture,” in Framing Medieval Bodies,
ed. Sarah Kay and Miri Rubin (Manchester, 1994), 160-86.
27 For numerous citations from the Policraticus about the good ruler and the nature
 344 FAYE GETZ
the question of what Athens had to do with Jerusalem, it came close.
John of Salisbury wanted to demonstrate among the writings of the
patriarchs natural justice; Bacon looked there for natural health.
Scripture, the Greeks, and the Romans all seemed to point in one
direction—that godly medicine was a part of a general philosophical
learning, learning known to the ancients and found in books, books
obscured by the bad translations Bacon longed to redact. Just as
philology could return corrupt, Babel-decayed texts to an uncorrupt
state, so medicine could return man’s body to its prelapsarian state
before Eve yielded to the false teaching of the Father of Lies. Man
once knew how this restoration could be accomplished,28 but this was
forgotten, and only could be recovered through the proper “decod­
ing” of texts.29
The Nature and Scope of Bacon’s Medical Writings
Bacon’s medical writings are tightly focussed.30 He confined his advice
to adult men, not surprisingly, since he was a friar, and limited his
medical purview to the undergraduate subjects of mathematics, astrol­
ogy, philosophy, and the mechanical arts, which for him included
of his advisors, see Hans Liebeschiitz, Medieval Humanism in the Life and Writings of
John of Salisbury (London, 1950), 23-74. The Book of Deuteronomy warned against
imitating the “abominable customs of those other nations” (18:10), and in general
oudined an ideal of a moderate ruler, surrounded by advisor priests, who “shall
have no holding or patrimony in Israel. . . the Lord is their patrimony” (18:1-2).
28 “Et praecipue haec sapientia mundo concessa est per primos, scilicet per Adam etflios ejus,
qui receperunt ab ipso Deo specialem congnitionem in hoc parte, quatenus vitam suam longius
protenderent. Sic videndum est per Aristotelem in libro Secretorum, ubi dicit quod Deus excelsus et
gbriosus ordinavit modum et remedium ad temperantiam humorum et conservationem sanitatis, et
ad plura adquirenda scilicet ad obviandum passimibus senectutis et ad retardandum eas, et mitigandum
hujusmodi; et revalavit ea sanctis et prophetis suis, et quibusdam aliis, sicut patriarchis”: Bridges
2:208.
29 Bacon’s disgust for translation of any sort permeates his work. See S.A. Hirsch,
“Roger Bacon and Philology,” in Roger Bacon Essays, ed. A.G. Litde (Oxford, 1914),
101-51.
30 This essay supplies no comprehensive coverage of Bacon’s medical works, but
limits itself to an examination of major writings whose authenticity is reasonably
established in internal evidence. This is also not a study of Bacon’s sources, most of
which are noted in E. Withington’s useful “Roger Bacon and Medicine,” in Roger
Bacon Essays, 337-58, in the relevant Latin texts found in Roger Bacon, De retardatione
accidentium senectutis cum aliis opusculis de rebus medicinalibus, ed. A.G. Little and
E. Withington (British Soc. Franciscan Studies 14 Oxford 1928), and in Mary
Catherine Welbom, “The Errors of the Doctors according to Friar Roger Bacon of
the Minor O rder,” Isis 18 (1932) 26-62.
ROGER BACON AND MEDICINE 345
“philosophical agriculture” (agricultura philosophica) and alchemy, a dis­
cipline he believed Aristotle had written of in the SecretumT Bacon’s
overarching pedagogical agenda, of course, was derived from the great­
est teacher of English Franciscans, Robert Grosseteste. Bacon wanted
to find a place for medicine in a program of Christian education.3132
In order to express his ideas on Christian medicine, Bacon em­
ployed a powerful metaphorical language common both to Holy Scrip­
ture and to pagan learning—redemption or renewal. Textual criticism
would “redeem” corrupt texts and restore them to their original state
before Babel; alchemy would return base metals to their pure state
of gold; and, of course, proper medicine would restore the body to
its prelapsarian state (the redemption of the fallen soul was of course
another related matter). All three of these subjects—textual criticism
or philology, alchemy, and medicine—are woven together in Bacon’s
most revealing medical works, a substantial section of the Opus majus
already cited and De erroribus medicorum (On the errors of the physicians).33
Exemplum II of the Opus majus, part six, comes under the heading
“scientia experimentalist’ of which Bacon made medicine a part. It is
the most detailed and carefully-crafted of Bacon’s medical writings.34*
He began by noting that some say the lengthening or shortening of
life is dictated by the position of the stars, which have shifted little
by little from their ideal places at the moment of Creation as the
world grew older. Bacon didn’t know whether or not this were true,
but he suggested instead another reason why man’s life has been
growing shorter (the reader is assumed to know the legendary ages
of the Old Testament patriarchs), a reason suggested by the “magni-
ficentia Scientiae Experimentalis” and written of covertly by Aristotle: a
31 Michela Pereira, “Un tesoro inestimabile: Elixir e ‘Prolongatio Vitae’ nell’alchi-
mia de 300,” Micrologus: I discorsi dei corpi 1 (1993) 164—5.
32 O n Grosseteste’s ideas of the importance of the study of ancient languages to
science, and on Bacon’s understanding of Grosseteste’s ideas of Christian scholar­
ship, see J.A. Weisheipl, “Science in the Thirteenth Century,” in The History of the
University of Oxford, vol. 1: The Early Oxford Schools, ed. LI. Catto and T.A.R. Evans
(Oxford, 1984), 435-69.
33 In Latin in Little and E. Withington, pp. 150-79. For an English translation,
see Welbom “The Errors of the Doctors.” Dating to 1260-1270 is suggested by
Michael R. McVaugh in his edition of Amald of Villanova, Opera medica omnia ii
Aphorismi de gradibus (Granada and Barcelona, 1975), 32, n. 1.
34 The Opus majus was sent to the papal court in late 1267 or early 1268: David
Lindberg, Roger Bacon’s Philosophy of Nature: A Critical Edition with English Translation,
Introduction, and Notes of Tie multiplicatione specierum and De speculis comburentibus
(Oxford, 1983), xxv.
 346 FAYE GETZ
regimen of health. The non-naturals are arranged in a man’s tem­
perament from infancy, and almost no physicians (medici) nowadays
can adjust this. Fathers are corrupted and generate corrupt sons with
the tendency to die young. This is not the only reason man’s life is
shorter than its natural extent. Sins weaken the powers of the soul,
which in turn debilitate the body and hurry it along toward death.
This too is passed along from father to son.35 .
The implications of what Bacon has argued here are important:
The body was naturally healthy, and lack of learned attention to its
regimen by people nowadays was the cause of physical deteriora­
tion. Nowhere did Bacon suggest that disease “attacks” the body and
makes it ill. Physical deterioration was, instead, the absence of health,
in the same way that Augustine had argued that evil was not an
ontological entity, but the absence of good: “evil is removed, not by
removing any nature, or part of a nature, which had been intro­
duced by the evil, but by healing and correcting that which had
been vitiated and depraved. The will, therefore, is then truly free,
when it is not the slave of vices and sins.”36 Bacon continued that
men used to know what to do about premature physical deteriora­
tion: “per experientias secretas” it had been discovered and written that
this rapid aging is accidental (having avoidable side-effects) and there­
fore can be treated. The medical art cannot achieve this but the
experimental art can.37
The accidents of old age include grey hair, pallor, wrinkled skin,
lots of mucus, stinking stool, sticky bleariness of the eyes, low blood
and spirits, insomnia, crabbiness, absentmindedness, and a host of
other unpleasant ills. O ur days are numbered, as Scripture says,38
35 Bridges 2:204—5.
36 City of God 16:11: Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, vol. 2, ed. Whitney J. Oates
(New York, 1948) 255. What follows is an explanation of how man’s fall was both
spiritual and physical (p. 256). For more on the “systemic” nature of physical ills,
see Peter H. Neibyl, “Sennert, Van Helmont, and Medical Ontology,” Bulletin of the
History of Medicine 45 (1971) 115-37.
37 Bridges 2:205.
38 Here and in other passages, Bacon appears to have in mind the Book of
Ecclesiasticus, one of the few parts of (apocryphal) scripture dealing with medicine
directly. Moderation in food, drink and emotions are recommended throughout,
while chapter 37 states that “A man’s life lasts a number of days” (25/28). The
following chapter, verses 1-15, honors the doctor and advises the faithful to use
both him and the medicines of the earth, because the Lord has made them both.
Petrus Hispanus (Pope John XXI) cited passages from Ecclesiasticus to begin his
popular medical text, Thesaurus Pauperum, which was written perhaps ten years later
than Bacon’s medical works.
ROGER BACON AND MEDICINE 347
but medical authors Dioscorides, Haly (al-Majusi), and Avicenna (ibn
Sina) all say there is a medicine that will prolong life to its natural
extent. They won’t let on what it is, though.39
Bacon continued, Adam and his sons knew what to do because
God told them; Aristotle hinted in the Secretum that God had a rem­
edy to temper the humors, conserve health, and obviate the sufferings
of old age and put it off. Saints, prophets, and patriarchs knew about
this—Pliny especially—but it was hidden from common philosophers.40
Bacon had read about this secret medicine in many places, espe­
cially in the book De accidentibus senectutis, a work believed by many
even in the medieval period to be Bacon’s own.41 He also read about
it in De regimine senum of the Experimentator (al-Razi), who declared
that the substance was bom underwater and found in the viscera of
long-lived animals. It was temperate in the fourth degree.42 What­
ever it was, made by alchemy (ars alkimiae) or by nature (Bacon noted
that gold was temperate in the fourth degree, fourth being the maxi­
mum), his conviction was that the remedy would act somehow to
restore the balance of the body’s complexion. The remedy must have
its elements mixed in perfect balance, because this will be the state
of the- (saints’) bodies at the Resurrection—“for the equality of the
elements in those bodies excludes corruption into eternity.”43*
Unlike bodies after the Resurrection, which will want nothing
because their elements are perfectly in balance, Adam’s body had
the elements almost perfectly in balance. Because these elements lacked
perfect balance, they strove with each other, and Adam needed
39 Bridges 2: 206-7.
40 Bridges 2: 208-9.
41 Printed in Little and Withington, pp. 1-83; but in the Opus majus, Bacon re­
ferred to “auctor istius libri,” which would indicate he did not write the work himself
(p. 210). For a thorough investigation of the correct authorship of the treatise, see
Agostino Paravicini Bagliani “D mito della ‘prolongatio vitae’ e la corte pontificia
del Duecento il ‘De retardatione accidentium senectutis,’” in Medicina e scienze della
natura alia corte dei papi nel duecento (Spoleto, 1991), 283-326.
42 Bridges 2:210.
43 Bridges 2:211-2; citation: “Aequalitas enim elementorum in corporibus illis excludit
corruptionem in aetemum” (p. 212). Augustine, in the City of God, also discussed the
“incorruptible body which is promised to the saints in the resurrection”: Oates,
p. 153. Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica is full of examples of saints whose sanctity was
known by the fact that their bodies remained uncorrupt. For example, Queen
Ethelthryth, a “perpetual virgin, whose body could not either be putrified in her
tomb” (pp. 102/103) and Cuthbert, who “after eleven years” burial, was found free
of corruption” (pp. 184/185): Baedae Opera Historica, with an English Translation by J.E.
King, vol. 2: Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (Cambridge, 1963).
348 FAYE GETZ
nourishment.44 In his body as a consequence of this slight imbalance
was a tiny bit of corruption, and that is why he wanted the immor­
tality that would follow if he ate the Forbidden Fruit; for this fruit
was deemed to have the elements almost in perfect balance, and for
that reason it could carry over its incorruption into Adam. Sages
wrote about foods or drinks that were perfectly temperate or nearly
so, but the work and expense of finding out more about them by
experience put people off.45 Bacon implied, then, that Original Sin
resulted as much from the promptings of Adam’s stomach as of
his wife.
Bacon’s implications for proper, dietetic medicine are clear. Per­
fect health lay in a balanced complexion, which will only be achieved
in the resurrected body.46 Perfection wants nothing, but the almost-
perfect body, like Adam’s, needs food and drink. The best food and
drink Bacon wrote of in terms of its purity, simplicity, balance, and
lack of corruption. It was temperate in the fourth degree—as balanced
as possible.47 Bacon offered many suggestions from his readings about
what this perfecting food (or remedy) might be: gold, pearls, amber­
gris, rosemary flowers, something a peasant found in a jar buried in
the ground, or the Forbidden Fruit. The ancients, and Pliny is the
last authority named,48 wrote of it, but more experience was needed
to know for sure.
In this section from the Opus majus, Bacon attacked the question of
proper medicine from the standpoints of natural science and Holy
Scripture. His alchemical imagery of secrecy, perfection, nobility, the
removal of impurities, and decoding the covert writings of ancients
44 The ability to fast over long periods, or not to eat at all was, of course, a sign
of sanctity. In general, see Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The
Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley, 1987) and Rudolph Bell, Holy
Anorexia (Chicago, 1985).
45 Bridges 2:212.
46 On the history of Christian obsession with bodily integrity and resurrection,
see Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection o f the Body in Western Christianity, 2 0 0 -
1336 (New York, 1995), esp. “Fragmentation and Ecstasy: The Thirteenth-Century
Context,” 318—43, which explores some implications of bodily resurrection and con­
troversies over the Beatific Vision. For pontifical interest in prolongation of life, see
Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, “Ruggero Bacone, Bonifacio VIII, e la teoria della
‘Prolongatio Vitae’”, in Paravicini Bagliani, Medicina e scienze della natura, pp. 327-61.
47 On recipes for food and drink that were intended to restore the temperate
complexion, see Terence Scully, “The Sickdish in Early French Recipe Collections,”
in Health, Disease and Healing, pp. 132-40.
48 Bridges 2:211.
ROGER BACON AND MEDICINE 349
was combined with images of sin and resurrection to suggest that it
was research into food and drink that would alleviate the accidents
of old age and extend man’s life to its greatest possible length.49
In his second major medical treatise, De erroribus medicorum,50 Bacon
attacked improper medicine from the standpoint of medical human­
ism. It is difficult to tell exactly what he used for a model in this
work, but it has its closest counterpart in the first few chapters of
Book 29 of Pliny’s Historia Naturalis. Nearly a century after Bacon’s
text, the humanist poet Petrarch wrote his Invectiva contra medicum, at
greater length but along similar lines, urging the exiled pope in
Avignon to send away his many doctors and, for the sake of his
health, choose only one.51 Both the Invective and De erroribus, then,
would seem to belong to a tradition of humanistic anti-physician
invective, put forth by fierce defenders of textual scholarship.
Bacon began his bombastic diatribe in typical style, promising much
but delivering considerably less. The physicians of today are guilty of
thirty-six major errors and countless subsidiary ones, he began, but
later on decided that naming all thirty-six errors would take too long.52
The major errors Bacon did attack fall into two related categories:
errors-of dependency and errors of ignorance. Good physicians should
know for themselves about the quality, use, price, and efficacy of
drugs. Otherwise, they are at the mercy of rustic apothecaries, “who
have no intention if not to deceive them.”53 This leads to the second
49 The equation of the duties of the good physician with those of the good priest
was a medieval commonplace Bacon and others played upon often. See Gerhard
Fichtner, “Christus als Arzt. Urspriinge und Wirkungen eines Motivs,” Fruhmittelalterliche
Studien 16 (1982) 1-18 (excellent bibliography); Ralph Arbesman, “The Concept of
‘Christus Medicus’ in St Augustine,” Traditio it) (1954) 1-28; Jole Agrimi and Chiara
Crisciani, “Medicina del corpo e medicina delTanima: Note sul sapere del medico
fino all’inizio del sec. XIII,” Episteme 10 (1976) 5-102.
50 A Catalogue of Incipts of Mediaeval Scientific Writings In Latin, ed. Lynn Thorndike
and Pearl Kibre, rev. ed. (London, 1963), cols. 463, 893.
51 The Invectiva is by and large a defence of poetry against the false rhetoric of
the clamoring physicians, who were after all only practitioners of the mechanical
arts. Part of the Invectiva is translated into English in Petrarch, A Humanist among Princes:
An Anthology, ed. David Thompson (New York, 1971), 128-30; also, Francesco Petrarca,
Invectiva contra medicum: Testo latino e volgarizzomenta di Ser Domenico Sibestri, ed. Pier
Giorgio Ricci and Bortolo Martinelli, new ed. (Rome, 1978); Siraisi, Medieval and
Early Renaissance Medicine, pp. 46-7.
52 “Sed bngum esset prosequi albs defectus vsque ad 36, et bngius eorum ramos protendere,
nec sufficio”: Little and Withington, p. 153.
53 “Vulgus medicorum non congnoscit suam simplkem medidnam, sed committit se rusticis
apothecariis, de quibus constat ipsis medicis, quod non intendunt nisi ipsos decipere”: Little and
Withington, p. 150.
 350 FAYE GETZ
sort of error: ignorance—of mathematical compounding of drugs, of
astrology, of alchemy, of philosophical agriculture, natural philoso­
phy, and especially of language, which prevents them from under­
standing medicine and what they ought to do.54
Summarizing Bacon’s text is difficult, largely because it is very dis­
organized, wandering and doubling back on itself. But it does con­
tain some important and revealing themes: first of all, that medical
writers disagree with each other all the time when they should be
speaking with one voice: “Authors say the same simple medicine purges
contraries, i.e. contrary humors, as when Haly says that senna purges
red choler, and Avicenna in his chapter on fumitory says that it
purges burnt humors, and the Latin authors say that it purges mel­
ancholy.”55 Discordance of language, then, is a serious barrier to proper
understanding of the meanings of words and thus of the things the
words are meant to signify.56 Similarly, physicians today spend all
their time arguing about an infinite number of trivial matters, instead
of learning from experience, to the point that they are always seek­
ing but never finding the truth.57
Another related topic is Bacon’s preference for simplicity over com­
plexity, a theme he artfully interwove into the language of alchemy.
Just as astrology and astronomy were the same for him, so were
chemistry and alchemy. Bacon, like many writers on pharmacy in
his time, wanted to purify and reduce medicinal substances to their
simple essence. The commonest way of doing this was by infusion—
the way we make tea. This process yielded a very weak form of
medicine.58 But the Arabs wrote about other ways, most notably
54 “Libri enim authentici sunt pleni vocabulis Arabicis, Greets et Caldeis et Hebreis, ita quod
non potest homo scire quid auctores velint dicere, ut patet in locis irfnitis, et quia ignorant linguam
Grecam et Arabicam et Hebream, a quibus injinita vocabula tracta sunt in libris Latinorum,
propter quorum ignorantiam non possunt intelligere medidnam nec operariLittle and Withington,
PP- 153-4; further, “ignoratur naturalis philosophia propter translationis peruersitatem: si vnus
dicit Aristotelem sentire hoc, alius dicit ipsum sentire contrarium”: p. 159.
55 “Auctores eandem medidnam simplicem dicunt purgare contraria, i.e. contrarios humores, ut
Haly didt quod sene purgat coleram rubeam, et Auicenna capitulo de fim o terre quod purgat
humores adustos, Latini quod m elancoliam Litde and Withington, p. 151; cf. Augustine,
City of God (in writing about the Trinity): “Neither are there many wisdoms, but
one, in which are untold and infinite treasures of things intellectual”: Oates, p. 153.
56 On the religious motivation of Bacon’s concern with the meaning of words, see
R.W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste: The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe
(Oxford, 1986), 15-9.
57 Little and Withington, p. 154.
58 For practical descriptions of how medieval medical practitioners made drugs,
see “Preparation of Medicines,” in Healing and Society, ed. Getz, pp. xxxviii-xli.
ROGER BACON AND MEDICINE 351
fermentation and distillation: “The seventh defect [among physicians]
is in the fermentation of medicines, because a compound, as Avicenna
says, without fermentation will not work”: The compound drug must
be reduced by proper fermentation into one nature (mam naturam) to
be effective; “this is the secret of secrets that the common among
physicians mistake entirely.”59
For distillation Bacon also made claims. For instance, he asserted
that healing oils and waters ought to be prepared by alchemical means
[per vias alkimie), through distillations (per distillationes). Many medici­
nal substances are poisonous, like quicksilver, and need to be miti­
gated. Some, like precious stones, gold and silver, pass through the
body too quickly unless they are dissolved. But if they are prepared
through the secret ways of alchemy, with the aid of the scientia
experimentalis, they can in small quantity help the human body be­
yond every expectation. Indeed Aristotle affirmed, that substances
can be reduced to their prime matter (ad materiam primam), in the
Metaphysics and at the end of the Meteorology.60
Distillation and fermentation, when properly performed, were use­
ful, indeed vital, ways to reduce a medicinal substance to its essential
and most powerful nature. What is more, these processes allowed for
the virtues of compound drugs to be united into one by ridding each
of its extraneous dross. Even a substance as forbidding as viper’s flesh,
Bacon argued, could not only be rendered harmless, but useful.61
A similar desire for simplicity permeates Bacon’s ideas about the
healing powers of plants and animals. On this point Bacon contrasts
the defects of natural philosophy, which deals with argumentation
and universals and not with alchemy, which argues from particular
to the primordial generation of things from elements and humors,
even up to the inanimate parts of animals and plants. “Practical”
alchemy derives the secret of secrets—how to transmute base metals
into gold—of which Aristotle spoke to Alexander, from the parts of
animals and plants. Similarly, philosophical agriculture (which covered
59 “7us defectus est in fermentatione medidnarum, quia compodtum, ut didt Auicenna, sine
fermentatione non valebit.. . hoc est secretum secretorum quod vulgus medicorum omnino ignorat”:
Little and Withington, pp. 152-3; further, p. 167. Bacon no doubt had in mind the
various fermentations described in the fourth book of Anstode’s Meteorology.
60 Litde and Withington, p. 165.
61 Litde and Withington, pp. 151-2; further, p. 163. Cf. Pliny, Natural History,
vol. 8, pp. 228/229 (Book 29, chapter 20), in which Pliny wrote of how treacle was
made of vipers’ flesh.
 352 FAYE GETZ
Aristotelian ideas of both botany and zoology) determines through
understanding the particulars of plants and animals the nature of the
whole and not merely the parts. Unfortunately, alchemy and philo­
sophical agriculture are neglected by students today.62
Bacon was anxious to excuse physicians for one fault at least—
that they could not practice on their subjects until they got it right
because of the “nobility” (propter nobilitate) of the subject matter. For
this reason experience is difficult in medicine.63 Truth cannot be cer­
tified without experience; for that reason, physicians ought to be ex­
cused for their huge deficiencies, more than others.64 Having excused
physicians in a rather backhanded way, in the very next paragraph
Bacon renewed his attack on them for their discord, and for the
sluggishness and death that often follows their procedures.65 Then he
recommended the simplest medicine of all—none. Those who do
not use medicines are stronger, more beautiful, and live longer than
those who surrender to them,66 and this is exceedingly plain among
northern peoples (nationibus septentrionalibus), who seldom use medicines.
If physicians understood every medicine and all the non-naturals (omnes
res non naturales), and the disposition of the heavens (dispositionem cell),
then medicines would prolong life and health.67
Bacon’s last major thematic concern is mathematics, another under­
graduate subject he thought crucial to medicine. Throughout his
medical works, Bacon was wary of compound medicines, deeming
them overpriced, adulterated, ineffective or even dangerous. Most of
the medicines he recommended were simples he associated in the
Opus majus with the secret of long life: rosemary flowers, the bone in
a stag’s heart,68 viper’s flesh, lignum aloes (aloe wood: Aquilaria agalbcha),
62 little and Withington, p. 160.
63 “Difficilis est experientia in medicina”: Litde and Withington, p. 161. Bacon’s allu­
sion is probably to the first aphorism of Hippocrates.
64 Litde and Withington, p. 161.
65 After noting the folly of slavish attention to medical treatises written only in
Greek, Pliny noted that “there is no law to punish criminal ignorance, no instance
of retribution. Physicians acquire their knowledge from our dangers, making experi­
ments at the cost of our lives. Only a physician can commit homicide with complete
impunity”: Natural History, vol. 8 (Book 29, chapter 8), p. 195.
66 Cf. Pliny, Natural History, vol. 8, pp. 190/191 (Book 29, chapter 8), in which
the writer noted that Romans had lived for over six hundred years without physi­
cians, but not without medicine (L. sine medicina).
67 Litde and Withington, p. 163.
68 The stag was thought to live over a thousand years; see “Theoretical Justifica­
tions for Pharmaceutical Practices,” in Healing and Society, ed. Getz, pp. xviii-xxii.
ROGER BACON AND MEDICINE 353
opium, deer musk, gold, and Indian rhubarb, with which Bacon had
experimented with success on himself against phlegm.69 All these
substances are rare, and their true nature known only to the most
learned philosophers, like Bacon, for instance, who described their
physical properties and administration at the end of his treatise.
Difficulty arose for the physicians, he asserted, when they tried to
compound drugs without the proper knowledge. Latin physicians did
not understand the rules of degrees and proportion, which involved
many questions Bacon himself found difficult.70 Alkyndi (Al-Kindi)
understood what to do, but physicians today are entirely ignorant.
Anybody who wants to compound drugs has to be familiar with the
agreed principles of mathematics {communia mathematice), due to the
proportions, and uleges Jractionum difjiciles” written about by Alkyndi.
What is more, since the skies change every hundred years or so, and
therefore their effect on terrestrial beings is different, new calcula­
tions need to be made for compound drugs to be effective. But who
nowadays knows how to do this? Certainly not a mere physician
(purus medicus), unless he knows astronomy.71
Bacon’s general point is perhaps less than obvious to modern
audiences. Medicine is not independent of other disciplines; in fact,
many other things must be mastered before it: There can be no
medicine without knowledge of languages; there can be no medicine
without proper methods of argumentation; there can be no medicine
without alchemy, astrology, philosophical agriculture, and mathematics.
Most of all, there can be no medicine without knowledge of natural
philosophy: “For Aristotle says that where natural philosophy ends
there medicine begins, and the natural philosopher has to supply the
first principles of health and infirmity.”72 In other words, a liberal
arts education must be propaedeutic to a medical one, or the physi­
cian is useless, even dangerous.
69 Welbom lists the drugs mentioned in De erroribus on pp. 54-61. Bacon listed
among his favorite remedies “singing, the sight of human beauty, the touch of young
girls, warm aromatic waters” and other soothing restoratives (Little and Withington,
p. 178), reminding the reader of King David and Abishag (I Kings 1:1-4).
70 Little and Withington, p. 166.
71 Little and Withington, pp. 166-7.
72 “Aristoteles enim dicit quod vbi terminatur philosophia naturalis, ibi incipit medicina, et
naturalis philosophus habet dare principia vltima sanitatis et inftrmitatis”'. little and Withington,
p. 158; the passage of Aristotle cited is De sensu, book I, 436a. See Gracia, “The
Structure of Medical Knowledge,” p. 23.
 354 FAYE GETZ
Bacon would seem to be expanding on the arguments of St Isidore
(d. 636), the encyclopedic writer and bishop of Seville, who asserted
in his hugely popular encyclopedia Etymologies (IV, 13) that medicine
embraced all other subjects, including grammar, rhetoric, dialectic,
arithmetic, geometry, music, and astrology.73 Isidore also remarked
in the same passage that medicine was a “second philosophy,” an
advancement on the natural philosophy that would later be a part of
the undergraduate curriculum.74
By insinuating medicine into learning about Aristotle’s natural
philosophy and Arabic authorities on mathematical pharmacy Bacon
was of course declaring the moral value of a liberal arts education
for the physician. The influence of this idea is difficult to judge in
England; however, many elite medical patrons employed university-
educated physicians without medical degrees. Among many possible
examples, Geoffrey Melton, priest and Oxford arts master, attended
Mary Bohun, Countess of Richmond, Henry IV, Isabella of France,
and her husband, Richard II (murdered 1400). Richard II was also
advised by priest and arts master John Wyke.75
Equally widely-shared was Bacon’s idea, taken from the Secretum
Secretorum, that the regulation of the non-naturals through a regimen
of health was the proper subject of medical learning. Humanistically-
minded vernacular poets like Geoffrey Chaucer denounced the fancy
potions of the humoral physicians as vanity in Chaucer’s “Nun’s Priest’s
Tale,” contrasting the temperate regimen of the widow: “Attempree
diete was al hir phisik,/And exercies, and hertes suffisaunce,” with
the gaudy excesses of Chanticleer and his meddling medicine-dosing
wife Pertelote.76 Later on, the poet Thomas Hoccleve wrote a Regement
of Princes in English based in part on the Secretum Secretorum for the
73 William D. Sharpe, “Isidore of Seville: The Medical Writings: An English Trans­
lation with an Introduction and Commentary,” Transactions of the American Philosophi­
cal Society, new series, vol. 54, pt. 2 (1964) 64; also John A. Alford, “Medicine in the
Middle Ages: The Theory of a Profession,” Centennial Review 23 (1979) 381.
74 “Hinc est quod Medicina secunda Philosophia dicitur. Vtraque enim disciplina totum hominem
sibi vindicat. Nam sicut per illam anima, ita per hanc corpus cu ra tu rSan Isidore de Sevilla,
Etimologias: Edicion Bilingiie, vol. 1 (libros i-x), ed. and trans. Jose Oroz Reta and
Manuel-A. Marcos Casquero (Madrid, 1982), 506. The reference is probably to
Metaphysics (1037al5): Gracia, “The Structure of Medical Knowledge,” p. 23.
75 Faye Getz, “Medical Education in Later Medieval England,” in The History of
Medical Education in Britain, ed. Vivian Nutton and Roy Porter (Amsterdam, 1995), 86.
76 The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. F.N. Robinson, 2nd ed. (Boston, 1957), 198—
205 (VII 2821-3446).
ROGER BACON AND MEDICINE 355
future king Henry V in 1411.77 The monk John Lydgate, patronized
by Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, wrote a dietary in bad English
verse.78 Numerous translations of the Secretum into French and En­
glish were made in England during the later middle ages and survive
into the early printed tradition.79
Priest, humanist and Oxford chancellor Gilbert Kymer, who held
doctorates in medicine and theology, also worked in the regimen
tradition. He compiled a personal Dietary in Latin, for the would-be
humanist Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, youngest son of Henry IV,
who made generous gifts of books to Oxford University with Kymer’s
help in 1439, 1441, and 1443.80 The explicit (conclusion) of the text
says it was written on March 6, 1424 in Hainaut, Flanders, where
his patron waged a successful military campaign to win those lands
on behalf of his new wife, Jacqueline of Hainaut.81 The regimen
contains advice on what and when to eat and drink much like that
Aristotle was thought to have given Alexander, with the notable
addition of a virtual sermon on the evils of excessive and improper
coitus, including lovesickness, jealousy, forgetfulness and a shortened
life.82*All these dire warnings were to no avail, for like many patients,
77 Derek Pearsall, “Hoccleve’s Regement o f Princes: The Poetics o f Royal Self-
Representation,” Speculum 69 (1994) 386-410.
78 The poem advised moderation in diet, emotion, and exercise over the use of
medical practitioners: The Minor Poems ofJohn Lydgate, ed. Henry Noble MacCracken,
part 2: Secular Poems, Early English Text Society o.s. 192 (1934, ipt 1961) 703-707.
The poem is printed with matching verses from the Regimen sanitatis Salemitanum in
Latin that is its source: Max Forster, “John Lydgate’s Dietary,” Anglia 42 (1918)
176-91.
79 Manzalaoui, Secretum, pp. xxii—xlviii.
80 The collection included medical books: Getz, “Oxford,” p. 403. See also A.C.
De La Mare, “Manuscripts Given to the University of Oxford by Humfrey, Duke
of Gloucester,” Bodleian Library Record 13, 1 (1988) 30-51; 13, 2 (1989) 112-21. For
the medical books, see Vem L. Bullough, “Duke Humphrey and His Medical Col­
lections,” Renaissance News 14 (1961) 87-91.
81 The text survives in British Library, Sloane MS 4, fols 63-104, from the later
15th century. The witness is badly copied, with text missing, and is exceptionally
difficult to read. It is not Kymer’s autograph. The table of contents and two chap­
ters are printed in Thomas Hearn, Liber Niger Scaccarii, vol. 2 (London, 1774) 550-9.
The table of contents is also printed in Early English Meals and Manners, ed. Frederick
J. Fumivall, Early English Text Society o.s. 32 (1868, rpt 1904) lxxxii-lxxxiii.
82 “Digestionem impedit, esuriem defalcat, siciem general, humores corrumpit, spiritus depauperat,
calorem naturalem infrigidat, virtutes defeccat, operaciones prostemit, humidum radicale consumit,
membra liquefacit, morbos nepharios procreat, virum effeminat, amorem hereos et zdotipiam producit,
oblivionem, pigriciem, negligenciam, et vercordiam parit, vitamque abbreviat”: Sloane 4, Chap­
ter 19; Hearn, p. 557. Hearn noted dryly that such excesses were typical of the
Lancastrians: p. 551.
 356
FAYE GETZ
Duke Humfrey defied his doctor, had his first marriage annulled, and
married his notorious mistress.
Kymer also led a successful adventure along with other university
physicians in 1456 to gain protection from Henry VI to practice
alchemy. Henry’s letter patent affirmed as did Bacon the reality of
occult qualities. It noted that ancient wise men and exceedingly famous
philosophers had written secretly about how many glorious medi­
cines could be made from precious stones, oils, plants and animals,
especially the best of all, the Philosopher’s Stone, which could cure
curable infirmities and prolong human life to its natural extent. It
would also transmute metals to gold.83 The outcome of Kymer’s
adventure into medical alchemy failed, according to Thomas Norton’s
Ordinal o f Alchemy (ca. 1490), but Norton claimed the physician wrote
a book on the subject.84
A direct chain of “influences” is impossible to outline here, either
between Bacon and the vernacular poets or between Bacon and
Oxford’s first humanist physician, Gilbert Kymer. The most that can
be stated is that Bacon was a very early importer of medical human­
ism from the European continent, whose popularity as an alchemical
healer is better-documented in the early modem period than during
the middle ages.85 Surer indication of the popularity of Bacon’s medical
works appears in the writings of John Cokkys, Oxford arts master
83 “Cum antiqui sapientes et famossissimi philosophi in stris scriptis et libris sub figuris et
integumentis docuerint et reliquerint ex vino, ex lapidibus preciosis, ex oleis, ex vegetabilibus, ex
animalibus, ex metallis et ex medijs mineralibus multas medicinas gloriosas et notabiles confici
posse, et presertim quondam preciosissimam medicinam quam aliqui pkilosophorum matrem et
imperatricem medicinarum dixerunt, Alij gloriam inestimabilem eandem nominarunt, Alij vero quintam
essentiam, lapidem pkilosophorum et elixir vite nuncupaverunt eandem, cuius medicine virtus tarn
fficax et admirabilis existeret quod per earn quecunque infirmitates curabiles curarentur faciliter,
vita humana ad suum naturalem prorogaretur terminum, et homo in sanitate et viribus naturalibus
tarn corporis quam anime, fortitudine membrorum, memorie claritate et ingenij viuacitate ad eundem
terminum mirabiliter preservaretur, quecunque eciam vulnera curabilia sine difficultate sanarentur
que insuper contra omne genus venenorum Joret summa et optima medicina. Sed et plura alia
comoda nobis et rei publke regni nostri utilissima per eandem fieri possent velud metallorum trans-
mutationes in verissimum aurum. . . . ” In Latin with English translation in D. Geohegan,
“A Licence of Henry VI to Practise Alchemy,” Ambix 6 (1957) 10-17; also Getz,
“Baconian Alchemy,” pp. 146-7.
84 Thomas Norton’s Ordinal o f Alchemy, ed. J. Reidy, Early English Text Society
272 (1975) 50. Kymer’s treatise has not been identified. On prohibitions against
alchemy, see Edgar H. Duncan, “The Literature of Alchemy and Chaucer’s Canon’s
Yeoman’s Tale: Framework, Theme, and Characters,” Speculum 43 (1970) 633-56.
85 Charles Webster, in “Alchemical and Paracelsian Medicine,” in Health, Medi­
cine, and Healing in the Sixteenth Century, ed. C. Webster (Cambridge, 1979) noted that
“Roger Bacon was the major authority cited by Englishmen as sanctioning the quest
ROGER BACON AND MEDICINE 357
and medical bachelor (d. ca. 1475), who spent his life teaching and
practicing medicine in Oxford, apparently with the help of surgeon
John Barbour.86 Cokkys was the author of several medical treatises,
including a commentary on Hunayn (Johannitius) entided Notule M.
Johannis de Gallicantu super Johannisium, found in Bodley MS Ashmole
1475, pp. 1-75. He also took an interest in Bacon’s alchemical
medicine. Bodley MS e musaeo 155 is written in his own hand (save
several sections that are corrected by him) and contains the Opus
tertium, part of Opus majus, pseudo-Bacon De retardatione senectutis (be­
lieved by Cokkys to be Bacon’s own), De erroribus medicorum, and a
number of experimenta. Most of the extracts concern the medicinal
use of alchemical preparations.87
Bacon’s last major medical work, Antidotarium,88 mentioned De erroribus
and was probably intended as a fulfillment of sorts of the program
its author advanced there.89 An antidotary is a work about compound
medicines, those having more than one ingredient (as opposed to a
book of simples, about medicines having only one component), and
Bacon explored the ways in which simples could be combined use­
fully. As with Bacon’s other medical works, one cannot help but sense
Trinitarian philosophical concerns about how various parts can be
made into one substance successfully. Fermentation was once again
offered as most useful,90*but what this process was exactly remained
for Bacon a mystery. At least he did not describe it to his readers in
helpful detail.
Instead, Bacon wrote an often conventional treatise on quantifi­
cation, reflecting the understanding of Arabic pharmacy as taught at
for eradication of disease and the prolongation of life by alchemical means”: 302.
For a Continental parallel to Bacon’s medical alchemical thinking, see Pearl Kibre,
“Albertus Magnus on Alchemy,” in Albertus Magnus and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays,
ed. J.A. Weisheipl (Toronto, 1980), 187-202.
86 The Medical Practitioners in Medieval England: A Biographical Register, ed. C.H. Talbot
and E.A. Hammond (London, 1965), 134-6; Faye Getz, “Medical Practitioners in
Medieval England,” Social History of Medicine 3 (1990) 265.
87 Little and Withington, pp. xi-xiii; Getz, “Oxford,” pp. 378 n. 17, 395.
88 Little and Withington, pp. 103-19.
89 “Sed hie est vnus de 36 defectibus qui sunt apud nos, et hoc est propter defectum librorm, vel
quia sapientes occultauerunt hanc partem doctrine vel nescierunt; teamen ego scripsi nomina istorum
defectuum alibi et partem huius doctrine, secundum quod didici a sapientibus diuersarum linguarum
et literature”: Little and Withington, p. 110. The two treatises overlap considerably.
90 “Oportet igitur medicinam quamlibet compositam fermentari, quia compositum absque
fermentatione non valebit, ut dicit Auicenna in .v.to. Nam propterfermentationem ex pluribus rebus
simplicibus fit vna medicina, et ex pluribus qualitatibus fit vna qualitas, starts, operans, adquirens
aliam virtutem quam in suis simplicibus existat”: Little and Withington, p. 116.
 358 FAYE GETZ
the University of Paris around the middle of the thirteenth century.91
Following his principal Arabic sources ibn Sina and al-Majusi (Avi­
cenna and Haly Abbas), Bacon wrote about the relationship between
a medicine’s weight and its humoral effect. His own system, never
clearly worked out, suggested that additional substances be added to
the main ingredient of a compound in proportion to its quantity.92
Bacon, like Pliny, shrank from what he thought was the ignorant
compounding of drugs willy-nilly as irrational and dangerous.93 Rea­
son and experience should be the guides, and for his rational system
Bacon turned to the Greek system of four qualities—hot, cold, moist,
and dry—which in a medicine acted against their opposites in the
body: “And if a disease against which we are compounding is cold,
then a medicine ought to be compounded in quality hot according
to the contrary degree of the cold disease.”94 These qualities, accord­
ing to Galen and other ancient authorities, were divided into four
“degrees,” with the fourth being the most extreme form. There was
also a “temperate” quality, which represented a kind of zero, having
no pharmaceutical effect.95
Bacon accepted this mathematical system as axiomatic, and tried,
in a rather half-hearted and ill-tempered way, to show how it might
apply to the successful compounding of medicines. He began with
one of his favorite metaphors, the plant, its roots, and its branches,96
to suggest that each compound has at least one, and often more
than one simple “root” (L. radix): “For just as a plant is sustained
91 The pharmaceutical system Bacon expounded, and its intellectual context, are
explained thoroughly and masterfully by McVaugh in Amaldi de Villanova Aphorismi
de Gradibus, pp. 31-51.
92 “Nam ex vera proportione prouenit veritas, virtus, vel proprietas in composito, que in simplicibus
non habetur, sed precipue in proportione radicis et rerum sequentium eius operationem. Nam in hiis
duobus consistit proprietas et operatio totius compositi”: Litde and Withington, p. 113; in
more detail, McVaugh, p. 39.
93 “Caueant igitur arrogantes et proterui in vanitate studentes ex industria eorum componere
tnedicinam, nisi sciant scientiam componendi, quod est impossible eos noscere propter defectum
illius partis scientie que docet cognoscere res que ad inuicem se expoliant, et hec consideratio est
gratia compositi to tiu s Little and Withington, p. 113.
94 “Et si egritudo, contra quam componimus, est jrigida, tunc componenda est medicina in
qualitate calida secundum contrarium gradum frigiditatis egritudinisLitde and Withington,
p. 112.
95 “Et quandocunque medicina composita excedit in aliqua qualitate: ideo consideranda est eius
qualitas, vtrum debeat esse calida vel jrigida vel temperata vel sicca vel humida, vtrum secundum
Plinium illud quod soluit debet esse c a lid u m Litde and Withington, pp. 111-2; for the
Galenic system, McVaugh, pp. 4—8.
96 Cf. De erroribus, Litde and Withington, p. 150.
ROGER BACON AND MEDICINE 359
from its roots, so a compound by its root or roots.”97 This root was
a single substance, “like viper’s flesh in treacle or aloes in iera pigra,”98
which sometimes needed to be combined with others to mitigate its
effect, to treat multiple afflictions, or to help carry it to a remote
part of the body.99
Laxatives and opiates especially caught the author’s attention. These
were two drugs of great interest to medieval physicians because of
their undoubted pharmaceutical effect. But beyond that, laxatives and
opiates satisfied their expectations because of these drugs’ perceived
humoral properties. Bacon believed, like most medieval medical think­
ers, that illness was a kind of poisoning, and that the job of medical
treatment was to purge the body of this poison.100 This interest in
poison appears throughout Bacon’s medical writings.101 Viper’s flesh—
like many of the best medicines both poisonous and helpful—and
the celebrated treacle (L. tyriaca)—a universal antidote for poisoning—
come up repeatedly in his works.102
Opiates are a different story. One might think Bacon’s interest in
opiates stem from an interest in their soporific quality, and indeed
there is some evidence that opium derivatives were used for surgery.103
Surgery was one of the many medical topics Bacon neglected entirely,
however; his interest was in the fact that opium, being extremely
97 “Nam sicut planta ex suis radicibus, ita compositum ex sua radice vel radicibus sustentatur”:
Litde and Withington, p. 106; also McVaugh, pp. 39-45.
98 For a iera pigra recipe written by an Englishman contemporary with Bacon,
see Gilbertus Anglicus, Compendium medicine (Lyons, 1510), fol. 237 or Healing and
Society, ed. Getz, p. 222.
99 Litde and Withington, p. 107.
100 Purgation of peccant humors was discussed frequendy in De erroribus, for ex­
ample, Little and Withington, p. 150.
101 Litde and Withington, p. 105: “Nam virtutibus confortatis inimicum expellit per sensibilem
vel per occultam expulsionem, sicut composita facit medicina que est de genere venenorum. ”
102 For viper’s flesh, see especially Litde and Withington, p. 110; for treacle,
p. 119; for both together, p. 108; for scriptural, medical, and natural historical con­
texts, see Jerry Stannard, “Natural History,” in Science in the Middle Ages, ed. David
C. Lindberg (Chicago, 1978), p. 442. Cf. Pliny, Natural History, vol. 8 (Book 29,
chapter 8): “Theriace vocatur excogitata compositio. fit ex rebus sexcentis, cum tot remedia dederit
natura quae singula sujficerent. Mithridatium antidotum ex rebus L IIII componitur, inter nullas
pondere aequali et quarundam rerum sexagesima denarii unius imperata, quo deorum, per Fidem,
ista monstrante!” (p. 198). Pliny continued that the physicians, ignorant of the correct
names of drugs, had promoted practices that “ruined the morals of the Empire”
(p. 199).
103 Linda E. Voigts and Robert P. Hudson, ‘“A drynke that men callen dwale to
make a man to slepe whyle men kerven him’: A Surgical Anesthetic from Late
Medieval England,” in Health, Disease and Healing, pp. 34—56.
 360 FAYE GETZ
cold,104 was able to be compounded with other medicines and pre­
vent them from dissolving before they reached the affected part.105
At several turns in the treatise, Bacon repeated his worry that the
modemi were not getting things right, but his concern that time had
changed the world in important ways went deeper than the somewhat
Ciceronian pose the writer chose to strike. Just as the stars were said
to have moved from the time of Creation, making new astrological
calculations necessary for the physician,106 so the human body had
changed from ancient times, making dosage based on old texts danger­
ous.107 Bacon seems to be suggesting that the medicinal substances
he dealt with, nearly all of them exceedingly rare,108 remained like the
stars immutable in their essential properties throughout the centuries.
Only the microcosm of humanity changed, requiring constant mathe­
matical recalculations.
Conclusion
Bacon’s attempts to separate what was eternal and perfect from what
was mutable and imperfect are of course not confined to his medical
writings; nor are such concerns limited to Bacon alone. His interest
in physicality, food, and the body are striking, but certainly not unique.
104 Known to medical writers as a “stupefacative”: Gilbertus Anglicus, Compen­
dium, fol. 131 v; Healing and Society, ed. Getz, p. 38.
105 “Et quandocunque intentio nostra est ut medicina quam componimus agat in membro longinquo,
et timemus ne digestio prima et secunda jrangat virtutem eius, tunc associamus ei medicinam que
earn conseruet; et non timemus audaciam duarum digestionum, ymmo ducit earn sanam ad membrum
ad quod intendimus, sicut ponimus opium in medidnis tyriace, ut dicit Auicenna in 5° canone
Little and Withington, p. 111. Gf. Gilbertus Anglicus, Compendium, fol. 266, (Healing
and Society, ed. Getz, p. 247) in which opium was recommended to bring medicine
to the kidneys.
106 Opus majus, p. 204.
107 “Tamm in hiis duobus modemi peccant, in dosi narcoticorum et laxatiuorum, quia quanta
est differentia inter calorem naturalem et corpora antiquorum et modemomm, tanta est differentia in
dosi scripta in libris antiquis codicis et in ilia que debet hodie hominibus exhiberi”: Little and
Withington, p. 108.
108 Medieval medical texts are full of “rich man, poor man” suggestions for treat­
ment, suiting the drug to the social station of the patient: Gilbertus Anglicus, Compen­
dium medicine, fol. 236v; Healing and Society, ed. Getz, pp. 219-20. Likewise, various
organs had “social status,” the heart being the noblest and requiring the most expensive
medicines. Bacon advised compounding medicines that “comforted” the principal
members of the body, especially the heart: Little and Withington, p. 109.
ROGER BACON AND MEDICINE 361
Moreover, his knowledge of learned medicine is neither deep nor
wide, and the length of his medical writings would scarcely exceed
the length of this essay. What is remarkable about Bacon’s medical
work is the synthetic meaning he drew as much from Scripture as
from encyclopedias and scholastic medical texts. His weaving together
of the fruit of the Tree of Life from the Old Testament, simple regi­
men from Pliny, the Philosopher’s Stone from pseudo-Aristotle, and
of precious drugs from Islamic philosophers into a reasonably coher­
ent set of medical theories is an achievement of almost poetic inge­
nuity, filled with intriguing paradoxes.
Irritating, pompous, and self-important at times, Bacon also man­
aged to convey a sense of wonder and reverence for Nature and the
works of God no English medical writer would ever surpass. He was
able to do this for many reasons, but perhaps more than any because
he, like Pliny, conceived a medical system firmly connected to a
knowledge of the natural world gained through marvellous books, to
which he added his own unshaking conviction of the moral value of
the liberal arts. Bacon the encyclopedic medical thinker was a collector
and assembler of what he thought was the best medical information,
from a variety of sources. As such, his writings represent continuity
with the Latin and patristic past, as well as an acceptance of the
authority of alien thinkers. What is more, Bacon subordinated medi­
cine to philosophy, making it part of a general knowledge of the
nature of the good life. Like Pliny, he embraced the medicines, but
rejected the physicians. Historians of our time who would look to
Bacon’s remedies for pharmacological effectiveness are missing his
point. Bacon’s was a medicine of books—of meanings, symbols, lan­
guage, and hidden truths. As precursors of modem ideas of scientific
truth, Bacon’s medical thoughts are a dead end. As a set of insights
into thirteenth-century understanding of the natural world, Bacon’s
medical writings hold compelling attractions.
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15. ROGER BACON AND TH E SECRET OF SECRETS
Steven J. Williams
Roger Bacon was influenced by many books, so the present reader
may well wonder why the pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets (Secretum
secretorum, henceforth Secretum) is here being singled out for attention.
First, as will be explained below, this book was quite important to
him: in a number of writings during the 1260’s and 70’s, he cited
the Secretum with a frequency not seen by any other schoolman; what
is more, he took the time to prepare an edition of the Secretum complete
with introduction, diagrams, and notes—something he did with no
other book. Clearly, Bacon had an exceptionally high regard for the
Secretum. But there is a second reason that Bacon’s relationship to the
Secretum merits our consideration. Because it meant so much to him
and was so much a part of his intellectual life, it provides the opportu­
nity to .explore some of his characteristic ideas as well as to reexam­
ine some crucial aspects of his biography. In other words, the Secretum
provides a convenient vantage point from which to view Bacon’s phi­
losophy and career—the primary task of this volume of essays.
An extended missive supposedly sent by Aristotle to his former
pupil Alexander the Great while the latter was on campaign in Per­
sia, the Secretum contains substantial portions of pragmatic advice on
politics and morals, and as such belongs to that literary genre known
as “mirrors for princes.” But the Secretum is something more besides:
a miscellany of information useful to a ruler on the subjects of health,
physiognomy, and occult science. Initially translated from Arabic into
Latin in a partial version by John of Seville ca. 1130, the complete
Secretum appeared around one hundred years later through the efforts
of a cleric named Philip of Tripoli. Soon circulating at the papal
and imperial courts, Philip’s work was certainly known in Paris by
the mid-1240’s.1
Roger Bacon was then in Paris, teaching courses in Aristotelian phi­
losophy at the university’s Faculty of Arts (the customary dates given
1 O n the genesis of the Secretum secretorum in the Arab world and its fortuna in the
Latin West, see the bibliography at the conclusion of this article.
366 STEVEN J. WILLIAMS
by historians for his stint as regent master are ca. 1240-ca. 1247).
Bacon probably encountered the Secretum at this time, though we have
no indubitable proof for it. In 1267 Bacon talks about having pur­
chased “secret books” for some twenty years, but such a category
would have to include the whole array of books on occult science
plus “compilations of recipes, formulas, and ‘experiments’,” so this
statement cannot help us here.2 The medical treatise De retardatione
accidentium senectutis, which was begun at the suggestion of Philip the
Chancellor (d. 1236) and which quotes the Secretum repeatedly, is not,
we now know, Bacon’s work.3 Some other medical writings included
in OHI IX occasionally cite the Secretum too, but attempts to locate
them to the 1250’s are flawed by mistaken attributions and insuffi­
cient argument.4 Both the Baconian tract De secretis operibus naturae
and the Metaphysica refer to the Secretum: however, the dating of the
former to 1248 cannot be taken seriously—its contents definitely come
from a later time in Bacon’s life;5 the latter, which a few scholars
2 See p. 369 below. I take this quotation from William Eamon, Science and the
Secrets ofNature. Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modem Culture (Princeton, 1994), 16.
3 See the devastating objections to Bacon’s authorship made in Crowley, 23-5.
The coup de grace to this long-standing misattribution was delivered by Agostino
Paravicini Bagliani, “II mito della prolongatio vitae e la corte pontificia del Duecento:
il De retardatione accidentium senectutis,” in his Medicina e scienze della natura alia corte dei
papi nel Duecento (Spoleto, 1991), 281-326. For yet another argument contra, see Jeremiah
M.G. Hackett, “The Meaning of Experimental Science (scientia experimentalis) in the
Philosophy of Roger Bacon” (Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1983), 88-9. Accord­
ing to the testimony of two early witnesses, the author was a certain Dominus Castri
Gret or Goet.
4 Besides the editors of O H I IX, only Easton and Alessio make something of an
effort to date Bacon’s medical opera: Easton, 91, 94, 101, 108, 111; Alessio, 273-5,
281, 283-4, 288, 305. Four of the tracts that regularly accompany De retardatione in
the manuscripts are not Bacon’s either: see Paravicini Bagliani, “D mito della prolongatio
vitae,” esp. 286-9, 319.
5 Lynn Thorndike, History o f Magic and Experimental Science (New York, 1923), vol. 2,
689, suggests that this tract was compiled from Bacon’s writings by a hand different
than Bacon’s own; see also the doubts about the authenticity of portions of the
work expressed by Dorothea Waley Singer, “Alchemical Writings Attributed to Roger
Bacon,” Speculum 7 (1932), 80-1. However, the fact that it seems to be included as
part of Bacon’s Secretum project in Tanner 116 (s. xiii ex., perhaps even before Bacon’s
death) tells in its being Bacon’s own work: see n. 89 below. Also relevant are the
observations of Irene Rosier, La parole comme acte. Sur la grammaire et la semantique au
X IIIe siecle (Paris, 1994), 221 n. 56, and William R. Newman, “The Philosophers’
Egg: Theory and Practice in the Alchemy of Roger Bacon,” Micrologus 3 (1995),
93-4. Some historians have placed De secretis operibus naturae early in Bacon’s career
because of an explicit saying that the work was “ad Gulielmum Parisiensum [i.e.,
William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, d. 1248] conscripta”. Found only in a manu­
script of unknown date that belonged to John Dee, this information is obviously
quite untrustworthy: see A.G. Little, in Roger Bacon Essays, 395; The Mirror of Alchimy
Composed by the Thrice-Famous and Learned Fryer, Roger Bachon, ed. Stanton J. Linden
ROGER BACON AND THE SECRET OF SECRETS 367
have dated to the early 1250’s, almost certainly belongs to the fol­
lowing decade.6 While a number of Bacon’s class lectures survive
from this early period, nowhere does the Secretum appear even impli­
citly in them. And Bacon’s glosses on the Secretum were not com­
posed anywhere near the time of Bacon’s regency in Arts—contrary
to what most scholars have said, following Robert Steele, the editor
of Bacon’s Secretum project.7
Steele places the Secretum glosses “early in [Bacon’s] career,” “at
some date before 1257,” and connects them with his activities as an
Arts professor; the introduction is put ca. 1270.8 This early dating of
the glosses makes little sense on its own terms: it seems unnecessarily
complicated to have Bacon comparing manuscripts of the Secretum
and commenting the resulting text ca. 1250, then letting his work sit
for some two decades until writing an introduction. But what under­
cuts Steele’s hypothesis completely are the glosses themselves. Both
in style and in content they are very different from the Parisian
commentaries of the 1240’s. Whole pages of the Secretum go by with
Bacon saying hardly a word. Many of the comments are hortatory
or philological in nature, something that was not standard fare in a
scholastic commentary. Furthermore, there is no firm supporting evi­
dence that Bacon had at this time the extensive knowledge of medi­
cal and alchemical matters that he displays in the notes.9 In fact,
(New York, 1992), xxv. Most modem students of Bacon take this work as coming
from his “mature” period, viz., from the 1260’s on.
6 Alessio, 278-9, 281, has Bacon starting the Metaphysica ca. 1250; Malgorzata
Frankowska, Scientia as Interpreted by Roger Bacon (Warsaw, 1971), 13, 47—50, admits
this as a possibility, and also argues for an early date on the basis of form and
content. The primary reason for an early dating of this work is Bacon’s statement,
“Quartum signum et pessimum est ignorancie in humanis sapienciis nunc tempori-
bus, quia scimus quod veritas divina sit complete revelata jam a mille ducentis et
quinquaginta annis que omnino perficit philosophiam, et dilucidat, et certificat” (OHI
I, 6). However, if this is indeed the correct reading of the number, it is not so clear
that we might take it to mean that it has been 1250 years since the birth of Jesus.
Perhaps Bacon had in mind the start of Jesus’ teaching career, or perhaps he was
just speaking loosely (cf. Duhem, 34-5). This last possibility is most likely. There is
a wealth of evidence to suggest that the Metaphysica was written in the years around
the papal opera: see O H I I, iii-v, 53-6; Little, xxviii-xx; Little, in Roger Bacon Essays,
9-10, 405 n. 1, 406-7.
7 A slightly different argument against Steele appears in my “Roger Bacon and
His Edition of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretomm,” Speculum 69 (1994), 57-73.
8 O H I V, vii-viii.
9 His Parisian commentaries of the 1240’s show little familiarity with medical
learning or medical texts. In one of them {De plantis), Bacon specifically argues that
the alchemical transmutation of metals is impossible: see William R. Newman, The
Summa perfectionis of Pseudo-Geber (Leiden, 1991), 22-5.

368 STEVEN J. WILLIAMS
many of them echo the practical scientific interests found only in
what is taken to be the work of the certifiably “mature” Bacon of
the 1260’s and after.10 It is also hard to imagine that Bacon would be
willing to share some of the alchemical secrets he reveals in his glosses
to the hoi polloi of students and masters.11 Add to this the fact that
one note mentions a translation of “Aristotle’s” Physiognomia—executed
by Bartholomew of Messina 1258-66;12 another seems to indicate
that a significant amount of time had elapsed between a cure effected
by the Secretion's panacea ca. 1252 and Bacon’s memory of the event;13
yet six more discuss Greek words with their Latin equivalents, and it
is commonly assumed that Bacon did not develop his intense con­
cern about the quality of translations or solid competence in Greek
until some time after his professorship in Arts.14 Finally, Bacon not
only makes reference to the notes in the introduction but he also
makes reference to the introduction in the notes, which suggests that
Bacon saw all the parts of his project functioning together as a unit,
and thus had probably been conceived that way.15 Unless, therefore,
we are willing to acknowledge Bacon’s precocious adumbration ca.
1250 of ideas characteristic of his maturity and to say that only some
of the glosses were done at this date, the conclusion is inescapable
that all of Bacon’s work on the Secretum, including the notes, was
done around the same time. Determining that time will be our task
below.
Helped along, no doubt, by Steele’s early dating of these glosses,
many scholars have given their assent to the view that the Secretum
was—in Steele’s words— “ [the] book which more than any other
10 See pp. 384ff. below.
11 Several times in his writings Bacon insists on keeping the great secrets of
alchemy away from the vulgus: O H I V, 116-7; Brewer, 42-3, 360; Little, 77, 80-3;
Duhem, 181-4. And see nn. 76 and 137 below.
12 O H I V, 165.
13 See p. 386 below.
14 O H I V, 60, 70, 85, 98, 140, 165. One of these notes even castigates as glomerelli
those who are ignorant of Greek and mispell xenium (ibid., 60); the word is also
discussed in the Greek Grammar (Greek Grammar, 71) and Compendium studii philosophise
(Brewer, 443). This concern about Greek, and a similar dismissal of glomerelli nescientes
Grecum, is found in the introduction too: O H I V, 1,3, 7, 12, 14. If the commentary
De sensu et sertsato is indeed Bacon’s, the knowledge of Greek signalled therein by
Easton (Easton, 25, n. 5) is of the most rudimentary kind.
15 Williams, “Roger Bacon,” 59-61. The superscription to the introduction, which
is almost certainly Bacon’s work, talks about the reader being expected to put the
notes and the introduction together so as to better understand the Secretum itself:
O H I V, 1; also Williams, “Roger Bacon,” 64 n. 31.
ROGER BACON AND THE SECRET OF SECRETS 369
influenced [Bacon] during the next quarter century.”16 Stuart Easton
has best argued the case in his now classic biographical study of
Bacon. According to Easton, it was a formative encounter with the
Secretum ca. 1247 that prompted Bacon to alter the direction of his
life in a fundamental way. Reading this book, hypothesized Easton,
“awakened [Bacon’s] dormant sense of wonder” and provided him
with a revelation of the power, beauty, and utility of science. From
the Secretum, too, Bacon learned that the entire fund of philosophic
wisdom, including great scientific secrets, was originally given by God
to the patriarchs and prophets, passed on through the Chaldeans
and Egyptians to the Greeks and Arabs, and thence to the Latins;
and that it was necessary to keep these secrets out of the hands of
the multitude. In Easton’s spirited formulation, “[Bacon’s] whole later
life and the emotional intensity with which he pursued it can be
traced to the impact of this book.”17 The strength of Easton’s ac­
count lies as much in its dramatic sense and psychological verisimili­
tude as in its factual dexterity; together they make a convincing
combination. In the wake of Easton’s book, it has become routine
for Bacon scholars to assert that the Secretum was instrumental in
bringing about Bacon’s conversion from a text-based scholastic phi­
losophy to a practically-oriented scientia experimentalis.
Historians have speculated that some sort of change in Bacon’s
intellectual course took place just around 1247. As Bacon described
it later in his Opus tertium (1267-68), “during the twenty years in
which I have labored specially in the study of wisdom, disregarding
the common way, I have spent more than two thousand pounds on
secret books, various experiments, languages, instruments, tables, and
other things. . . .”18 Nevertheless, there is no passage to be adduced
from Bacon’s writings proving that this change was due to the sin­
gular effect of the Secretum, and there is no clear evidence that Bacon
was profoundly influenced by the Secretum at or near this time.19
16 Robert Steele, “Roger Bacon,” Quarterly Review 221 (1914), 255-6 (with Steele’s
discussion continuing onto the following page); also O H I V, viii.
17 Easton, 24, 30-1, 73, 77-82, 85-6, 103, 108.
18 Brewer, 59. Two other comments by Bacon are relevant in this connection: in
the Opus minus, Bacon says that twenty years previously he had learned about tides
from a certain man (ibid., 359), and in the Opus tertium, he says that it has been
almost twenty years since he has attended the inceptions of new Arts masters deal­
ing with geometry (ibid., 139).
19 With admirable honesty, Easton (Easton, 86) admits that there is no “corrobo­
rative evidence” for his hypothesis.
370 STEVEN J. WILLIAMS
As for Bacon’s belief in a divine revelation of scientific knowledge
to the Hebrews, this might have come from several sources; as fre­
quently as Bacon cites the Secretum in this regard, he also mentions
Josephus.20 Similarly, there was a venerable tradition of knowledge
only for the initiated, “secrets” and secret writings, in various trades
and disciplines; and again, Bacon’s repeated mention of this idea in
his work includes references to other books besides the Secretum.21
That the Secretum was the principal inspiration for Bacon’s idea of
scientia experimentalis will not bear close scrutiny either. In the Secretum,
Bacon refers the very phrase to Ptolemy.22 To be sure, the Secretum
shows up often when Bacon treats this topic, and the Secretum pro­
vides Bacon with several key examples of the great wonders that it
could produce. But Bacon cites other authors besides Aristotle in his
discussions of scientia experimentalis, and he is excited by other mirabilia
besides those described in the Secretum.
Curiously, Steele himself offers as an explanation for Bacon’s change
in career path ca. 1247 the “public disgrace” that resulted from
bungling the interpretation of a Spanish word that he had taken to
be Arabic in an undergraduate lecture on Aristotle’s De plantis; it was
this, Steele surmised, that pushed him to Oxford and “the aban­
donment of traditional methods.”23 Such a scenario seems farfetched.24
Nevertheless, the example is instructive. A little imagination can come
up with lots of reasons to explain Bacon’s change of residence (if
indeed he made one ca. 1247) and change in intellectual direction.
That nature is full of occult forces, that Man can discover these forces,
that these forces are potentially useful, are ideas found in many of
the books that Bacon read; the same holds for the notion that knowl­
edge can be practical. Pliny the Elder, Ptolemy, Artephius, Solinus,
20 This importance of Josephus is even noted by Easton (Easton, 73 n. 3). A num­
ber of other authors were cited by Bacon in support of this idea: see the extended
treatment in Opus maius I, 44ff. And see n. 139 below.
21 Opus maius I, 9—10, Brewer, 416; Little, 81; Duhem, 182. Easton himself rec­
ognized that the demand for secrecy in alchemy “was a long established custom”
(Easton, 82 n. 1).
22 O H I V, 9; cf. Opus maius II, 215-6; Brewer, 44, Gasquet, 510; O H I II, 9.
23 Steele, “Roger Bacon,” 255; see also idem, “Roger Bacon and the State of
Science in the Thirteenth Century,” in Studies in the History and Method of Science, ed.
C. Singer, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1921), 130-1.
24 It is difficult to see how this was a “public disgrace” given that Bacon had long
been seeking the meaning of belenum on both sides of the Channel and that “all the
learned men (doctores)” believed that the word was Arabic. Bacon also informs us
that he went on to learn about many vernacular words used in translations from his
Spanish students. See Opus maius I, 67; Brewer 91, 467-8.
ROGER BACON AND THE SECRET OF SECRETS 371
Albumasar, Alkindi, Alhazen, Avicenna, Marbode, Hugh of St Victor,
Gundisalvi, the author of De retardatione accidentium senenctutis—we could
go on; the authors who might have prompted Bacon’s supposed
“breakthrough” insight would make a sizable library indeed.25 Simi­
larly, the agency responsible for this insight might have been a scien­
tific demonstration involving a lodestone or a lens; a scientist such
as Peter of Maricourt; a chance event like the “pop” of a child’s
firecracker; or some combination of these factors. We will never know
what prompted this revolution in his thinking—or even if it was a
revolution but rather a return to a path on which he had started as
a youth and a slow development of views that ultimately grew from
the English scholarly tradition.26 Bacon tells us in the Opus tertium
that he received early training “in sciences and languages.”27 He was
not the first Englishman to spurn the speculative gymnastics of Paris
or to remark the utility of scientific knowledge.28
We are forced to conclude, therefore, that the claim for the pre­
dominant role of the Secretum in Bacon’s life is an unsubstantiated
speculation, provocative but fanciful; it oversimplifies when the facts
are not there to warrant it.29 With this said, it remains that Bacon’s
25 O n the practical mindset developing in the High Middle Ages, see A.C. Crombie,
Augustine to Galileo (Cambridge, Mass., 1952), vol. 1, 69, 183-96; Alexander Murray,
Reason and Society in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1978), 110-6; Lynn White, Jr., Medieval
Religion and Technology. Collected Essays (Berkeley, 1978); William Newman, “Technology
and Alchemical Debate in the Late Middle Ages,” Isis 80 (1989), 423-45; Guy Beau-
jouan, “L’interdependence entre la science scolastique et les techniques utilitaires (XIIe,
XIIT et XLVe siecles),” in his Par raison de nombres. L ’art du calcul et les savoirs scientfques
medievaux (Aldershot, 1991), no. XIV; Eamon, Secrets of Nature, 38-58, 66-79.
26 Cf. Maurice De Wulf, Histoire de la philosophie medievale, vol. 2 (Paris, 1936), 271:
“[Bacon] recueille et accentue les traditions d’Oxford, ou, des les debuts de l’universite,
la methode experimentale et ^interpretation des phenomenes de la nature en termes
quantitatifs etaient en honneur”; D.E. Sharp, Franciscan Philosophy at Oxford (New
York, 1964), 119: “T hat Bacon simply took up the Oxford tradition is borne out by
the late appearance of his scientific and philological interests. . . . ”
27 “Jam a juventute laboravi in scientiis et Unguis” (Brewer, 58; cf. 65). Cf. his
statement in the Opus maius that he was the “auditor a iuventute” of the “maximus
naturahs et perspectiuvus quern vidi” (Hackett, “Experimental Science,” 293. See
the helpful discussion provided by Hackett in “Experimental Science,” chapter 1
passim; idem, “Scientia experimentalis: From Robert Grosseteste to Roger Bacon,” in
Robert Grosseteste: New Perspectives on his Thought and Scholarship, ed. James McEvoy
(Dordrecht, 1995), 93-8.
28 R.W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste. The Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe
(Oxford, 1986), 85-92, 104-5.
29 Cf. similar criticism by Christopher Dawson, “The Significance of Roger Bacon,”
The Month, n.s., 9 (1953), 47-52. In discussing aspects of Easton’s book that do not
concern us here, Dawson notes Easton’s “forcing of the evidence in the interests of
a psychological hypothesis” (51).
 372 STEVEN J. WILLIAMS
new or renewed-—scholarly interests, if not specifically sparked by
the Secretum, at least were supported and possibly pushed forward by
it. By the mid-1260’s, when Bacon was productive again after an
apparent hiatus in his writing career of some ten years, we see the
Secretum occupying a respectable, and sometimes important place, in
his thinking. In the works that Bacon composed for the pope, the
Secretum often appears in connection with some of his favorite themes,
in particular scientia experimentalist This importance of the Secretum is
likewise signalled by the fact that he had several manuscripts of the
Secretum in his possession at this time.3031 It is even possible that he had
started preparations for his Secretum project while in Paris.323
But it was at Oxford, probably some time between ca. 1275 and
ca. 1280, that Bacon finished his Secretum. Certainly this was after
the works for Clement IV (written in Paris 1266-68), because Bacon
refers in the Secretum to his own Opus m aiust He also mentions the
Antidotarius, which was apparently written around the same time if
not later.34 He takes the opportunity to change his mind about the
30 See pp. 388-90 below. In the Opus maius, Bacon discusses three examples of
experimental science’s “third prerogative,” and the Secretum is cited first for numbers
2 and 3; immediately following this, Bacon talks about several other mirabilia from
the Secretum. Note, however, that Bacon’s very first example of scientia experimentalis is
the spherical astrolabe, and after the flurry of citations from the Secretum he goes on
to discuss marvelous works from yet other sources. See Opus maius II, 202-19.
31 “Exemplaria quatuor que nunc inveni Oxonie non habuerunt ilia, nec similiter
multa alia, set Parisius habui exemplaria perfecta” (OHI V, 39). By the 1260’s, it
would appear, Franciscan practice had caught up with the Dominicans, and scholar­
ship had won out over poverty: see K.W. Humphreys, The Book Provisions of the
Mediaeval Friars 1215-1400 (Amsterdam, 1964), 46-66; Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis,
eds. H. Denifle and A. Chatelain, vol. 2 (Paris, 1891), no. 580, 56-9. Probably Bacon
had access to the Secretum in the library of Cordeliers ca. 1265; if it were organized
like the most advanced libraries of the time, perhaps he was even able to borrow a
copy or two from the collection’s parva libraria (see Steven J. Williams, “The Schol­
arly Career of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum in the Thirteenth and Early
Fourteenth Centuries” [Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1991], 91-2). And friends
could have lent him copies. But we might take him to mean that he really owned
several manuscripts of the Secretum. After all, Bacon did spend money as a friar, and
he did own scientific instruments.
32 Bacon explains in his Secretum that the four exemplars used in the correction of
his work do not have the material on talismans (OHI V, 39, 172; cf. what Bacon
says here with the superscription in ibid., 157); nevertheless, it appears in his edition
with notice o f some textual variants. This suggests the possibility that Bacon had
already prepared a preliminary redaction of the Secretum when he was in Paris.
33 O H I V, viii, 24; see also Williams, “Roger Bacon,” 61 n. 14.
34 O H I V, 23. The Antidotarius seems to refer to Bacon’s De erroribus medicorum
(OHI IX, 110, 214), and the latter certainly postdates ca. 1260 (Williams, “Roger
Bacon,” 72-3, nn. 88-9).
373
ROGER BACON AND THE SECRET OF SECRETS
correct Greek root of mathematica, i.e., disciplina or true science, as
opposed to dimnialio or the pseudoscience of magic which has a nearly
identical root, thus implicidy rejecting his own position as found in
the papal opera.35 On the other hand, it seems likely that Bacon’s
Secretum was done not that much later. The many similarities in ideas,
phraseology, tone, and form between the papal opera and the Secretum
project suggest that the latter followed upon the former within ten
years or so;36 indeed, the Secretum is of a piece not only with these
works, but also with the Communia naturalium, apparently started in
the mid-1260’s, set aside, then finished in the following decade, as
well as the Compendium studii philosophise (ca. 1272).37
That a number of Bacon’s remarks in his Secretum constitute responses
to contemporary controversies and debates may also suggest a date
around 1277, the year of the famous Parisian condemnation issued
by Bishop Etienne Tempier. By 1265, the Parisian scholarly world
was starting to be disturbed in a serious way by the propagation of
an eclectic, heterodox Aristotelianism. The Condemnation of 1277
was only the most dramatic of a number of complaints that had
been voiced by worried theologians for years. Repeatedly challenged
and .provoked, the authorities became increasingly touchy, and the
resulting Condemnation was a kind of scattershot attack on thinking
considered in any way threatening. Books dealing with necromancy,
fortunetelling, and the supplication of demons were anathematized.
Among the “execrable errors” castigated was Aristotle’s apparent denial
of a temporal creation, which had bothered some schoolmen since
the turn of the century; astrological determinism, necessitarian ema-
nationism, and monopsychism were also impugned. But this was
35 Opus maius I, 239-40; Brewer, 27, 261, 269-70. The view expressed in the
Secretum on this issue (OHI V, 2-3) is the same as in the Greek Grammar (Greek Gram­
mar, 117-8, 137) and the Communia mathematica (OHI XVI, 2-3). See the discussion
in Williams, “Roger Bacon,” 61. Note also that one of the lectures edited by Robert
Steele, “Roger Bacon as Professor. A student’s notes,” Isis 20 (1933), 61, contains
this later view, suggesting that it was composed after 1268, not before, as Steele
implies {ibid., 54).
36 A number of scholars have remarked Bacon’s habit of reusing the same mate­
rial for different writings and the similarity in content between the Secretum’s intro­
duction and the papal opera. Examples of the similarity in content between the
entire Secretum project and the papal opera can be found in these notes passim. Also
cf. the hortatory and polemical tone taken in the one and the other; the figurae
included in both; the glossing of the Secretum and the glossing of the selections from
Seneca in Part 7 of the Opus maius (for the latter, see Rogeri Baconis Moralis philosophia,
ed. Eugenio Massa [Zurich, 1953], passim).
37 I would add the Greek Grammar and the Metaphysica to this group.
 374 STEVEN J. WILLIAMS
no mere warning: those who did not hand over the above-mentioned
books, and those who maintained, defended, or even listened to any
of the censured practices or propositions, were threatened with ex-
communication and “other penalties, just as the law shall have dic­
tated, according to the gravity of the offence.”38
While no specific mention is made of the Secretum or its contents
in the Condemnation, it remains that this book made its own modest
contribution to the chorus of heterodoxy that so agitated conservatives
like Etienne Tempier. He would certainly have regarded some of the
Secretum?s contents as dangerous. The Secretum is full of praise for astrol­
ogy, including a story about a king’s son inexorably drawn by the
stars to become a smith.39 It has three chapters dealing with magi­
cal talismans.40 The fact that the “amulet of Hermogenes” described
by Aristotle includes the inscription of words (in this case, the names
of the planets) invites the charge that demons were to be summoned
for aid in the amulet’s functioning.41 And the book’s recipe for the
panacea includes suffiimigations, similarly redolent of the necromantic
invocation of spirits (even Albertus Magnus, the open-minded author
of the Speculum astronomiae [ca. 1265-1270?], had castigated their use
in connection with the fabrication of talismans).42
It is obvious from Bacon’s remarks in his Secretum that he feels
defensive about Aristotle’s and defensive about his own scientific views.
He is convinced that scribes, shocked by what they saw as “magic”,
have cut the chapters dealing with astral images.43 Presumably there
were other attacks; the intellectual climate of the time, and the tenor
of his introduction, suggest as much. In the Opus maius, Bacon ob­
serves that scarcely anyone has dared to speak in public about talis­
mans such as Aristotle describes in the Secretum, for fear of being
38 Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. 1, (Paris, 1889), no. 473, 543-58. O n the
Condemnation of 1277, see Aufklarung im Mittelalter? Die Verurteilung von 1277, ed.
K urt Flasch (Mainz, 1989), which includes a thorough bibliography.
39 O H I V, 136-7. Cf. condemned proposition no. 207 of 1277: Chartularium
Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. 1, p. 555.
40 O H I V, 157-63. Cf. the criticism of talismans in Giles of Rome’s Errores
philosophorum, ed. Josef Koch (Milwaukee, 1944), p. 53.
41 Aquinas made just such a general argument: see Theodore Otto Wedel, The
Mediaeval Attitude Toward Astrology (New Haven, 1920), 69; Brian B. Copenhaver,
“Astrology and Magic,” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Charles B.
Schmitt and Quentin Skinner (Cambridge, 1988), 282 and n. 39.
42 Paola Zambelli, The Speculum astronomiae and its Enigma. Astrology, Theology and
Science in Albertus Magnus and his Contemporaries (Dordrecht, 1992), 240-1, 246-7.
43 O H I V, 39, 172; cf. what Bacon says here with the superscription in ibid., 157.
ROGER BACON AND THE SECRET OF SECRETS 375
called magicians.44 Aspects of occult science were singled out for
criticism in Bonaventure’s Collationes in Hexaemeron (1273) and Giles of
Rome’s Errores philosophorum (ca. 1270), for example. It is possible that
Bonaventure’s sermons were partly inspired by and directed against
his fellow brother Roger Bacon; John Pecham, also for a time a
housemate in Paris, may have been another vocal opponent.45 As
George Molland has described the situation: “Bacon was adamant
that he was not advocating magic, but his repetitive vehemence shows
that he was conscious that he could be suspected of it”46—and, we
might add, probably was. Bacon was an outspoken advocate of astrol­
ogy and natural magic. He ridiculed those who reproved judicial
astrology as asini, and he accused them of “infinite stupidity.”47 He
was also an ardent defender of fascination, in spite of the fact that,
as he recognized, the very word was “suspect.”48 Indeed, in 1277 the
Condemnation would set itself explicity against this species of magic,
rejecting the proposition that “superior intelligences impress inferiors,
just as one soul impresses another, even a sensitive soul, and through
such an impression someone can throw a camel into a pit by sight
alone.”49
In an apparent attempt to palliate the conservative reaction, Bacon
goes out of his way in his introduction to condemn “wicked books”
written by “wicked men” that deal with magic; he even lists some
titles.50 At the same time, it seems that Bacon is doing his best to ensure
that the Secretum not be counted among them. He lambasts Philip of
Tripoli for using words associated with magic in his translation.51
44 Opus maius I, 393-4. Also ibid., 248, 396; Brewer, 270.
45 Bonaventure: Camille Berube, “Le ‘dialogue’ de S. Bonvaventure et de Roger
Bacon,” Collectanea jranciscana 39 (1969), 61-3; Crowley, 55-61; Hackett, “Experi­
mental Science,” 145-154, 156; La scienza sperimentale. Lettera a Clemente IV, La Scineza
sperimentale, I Segreti deWarte e della natura, ed. Francesco Bottin (Milan, 1990), 52.
Pecham: Hackett, “Experimental Science,” 142-5.
46 George Molland, “Roger Bacon and the Hermetic Tradition in Medieval Sci­
ence,” Vivarium 31 (1993), 150-1.
47 Brewer, 270. In the latitude that he gives to astrology, Bacon seems opposed to
the views of his hero Robert Grosseteste: see Hackett, “Scientia experimentalist 114-5,
117.
48 Opus maius I, 143, 398-403; also Brewer, 96-9, 528-32. O n Bacon’s view of
fascination, see the helpful discussion in Rosier, La parole, chapter 6 passim.
49 Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, vol. 1, 549. Bacon’s being at odds with the
Condemnation on this issue was brought to my attention by Murray, Reason and
Society, 110, 443. See also Rosier, La parole, 227.
50 O H I V, 6. See Brewer, 526, 531-2, and Little, 48, for similar lists of books.
51 OHI V, 2, 12, 39. In other works Bacon remarks the inadequacy of the scientific
vocabulary used by the major Latin translators of the period: Opus maius I, 67;
Brewer, 90, 467.
 376 STEVEN J. WILLIAMS
And while agreeing with those detractors who castigated magicians
for making use of demons and for asserting that their wonders hap­
pen of necessity, Bacon argues that there are men who are wise and
good able to do great things by means of ingenuity and natural forces
alone.52 This basic distinction between an evil and a good (or “natu­
ral”) magic was a scholastic commonplace by Bacon’s time. Bacon
likewise categorically rejects the idea that human actions are the
necessary result of the movements of the heavenly bodies, again tak­
ing the standard, orthodox line that they can incline a person to do
something, but they cannot affect free will; that they indicate, but do
not cause future behavior.53
Bacon makes an effort to deflect criticism of the Secretum's prob­
lematic philosophical contents as well. He tries to steer the text clear
of the doctrines of creation by intermediaries and the unity of the
intellect.54 He also defends Aristotle against those who would charge
him with heresy. With firmness, Bacon implicitly opposes the stance
of his esteemed mentor Robert Grosseteste who had said that Aristotle
was a heretic because of his denial of creation and who had warned
that those who argued otherwise were in danger of becoming here­
tics themselves.55 Like some other schoolmen, Bacon holds that
Aristotle believed in creation.56 More than that, Bacon claims that
Aristotle worshipped God and had some knowledge of the Trinity;
that he read the Old Testament and accepted the authority of Isaiah.57
52 O H I V, 6-8. Bacon discussed magic elsewhere in terms similar to his Secretum:
Opus maius I, 238-42, 394—403; Opus maius II, 216-7; Brewer, 96-9, 523-32; Little,
16-8, 53; Duhem, 153; Molland, “Hermetic Tradition,” 154—5. Also n. 50 above.
53 O H I V, 3-6. Bacon argued this frequendy in his later work: Opus maius I, 240-
50; Brewer, 26-7; Litde, 4; Gasquet, 514. See also several recent articles by Jeremiah
Hackett that place Bacon’s astrological views within the context of the Condemnation
of 1277 and the intellectual crisis that preceded it: “Scientia experimentalist 114—8;
idem., “Necessity, Fate and a Science of Experience in Albertus Magnus, Thomas
Aquinas and Roger Bacon,” in Man and Nature in the Middle Ages, ed. Susan J. Ridyard
and Robert G. Benson, Sewanee Mediaeval Studies 6 (1995), 113-23; idem., “Aristode,
Astrologia and Controversy at the University of Paris (1266-74),” in Learning Institu­
tionalized: Teaching in the Medieval University, ed. Edward English and John Van Engen
(forthcoming). This last item is a wide-ranging study that touches on a number of
the particular points raised here.
54 See pp. 382—3 below.
55 Robert Grosseteste, Hexaemeron, ed. Richard C. Dales and Servus Gieben (London,
1982), 58-61.
56 O H I V, 127 n. 4. Bacon defended Aristode on this issue for all of his life: see
O H I XIII, xxxv-xxxvii; Easton, 56-8; Theodore Crowley, “Roger Bacon and
Avicenna,” Phibsophwal Studies 2 (1952), 86-7. And see n. 140 below.
57 OHI V, 8, 37 n. 56, n. 1. Bacon spoke of Aristode’s trinitarianism elsewhere:
O H I I, 7-8; Opus maius II, 197, 230-1; Brewer, 423.
ROGER BACON AND THE SECRET OF SECRETS 377
Bacon is even willing to acknowledge the possibility that pagan sages
like Aristotle might be saved.58
Bacon’s remarks in his Secretum thus seem to reflect the feelings of
suspicion and tension that were especially prevalent in the years just
prior to the great Condemnation.59 Like Albertus Magnus in the
Speculum astronomiae, Bacon was concerned to defend books and dis­
ciplines that he believed were valuable. And notwithstanding his
irascible forthrightness, he, like Albert, does not mention the Con­
demnation in his work, nor does he ever “suggest any modification
or withdrawal of the episcopal decree”—perhaps because his defense,
like Albert’s, was written before it.60 There is yet another reason that
such a defense would be harder to imagine in the years immediately
after the Condemnation. Though Bacon was not in Paris when pre­
paring his Secretum (so technically he was not bound by the Condem­
nation), and though he was speaking privately for a prince’s ears
only, it would still have been impolitic, if not audacious, for Bacon
to speak so after 1277 in the face of the Condemnation’s offensive,
especially as it was John Pecham, a formidable, active opponent of
the “liberal” Aristotelian thinkers, who was provincial general of the
English Franciscans (1275-1279) and then Archbishop of Canterbury
(1279-1292).
However, Bacon’s remark in his introduction about the “false doc­
trine in philosophy begun fifteen years ago” could push the completion
date of the Secretum project to the years just after the Condemnation.61
58 O H I V, 37 n. Bacon’s opinion found supporters among some contemporaries:
see Williams, “Scholarly Career,” 98-9.
59 This was first suggested by Mahmoud Manzalaoui, “The Pseudo-Aristotelian
Sin al-asrar and Three Oxford Thinkers of the Middle Ages,” in Arabic and Islamic
Studies in Honor o f Hamilton Gibb, ed. G. Makdisi (Leiden, 1965), 487, and Jeremiah
Hackett, “Practical Wisdom and Happiness in the Moral Philosophy of Roger Bacon,”
Medwevo 12 (1986), 91-2; see also idem, “Experimental Science,” 124—40. O n Bacon’s
opposition to the Latin Averroists, see P. Hadrianus a Krizovljan, “Controversia
doctrinalis inter magistros franciscanos et Sigerum de Brabant,” Collectanea franciscana
27 (1957), 121-65; Jeremiah Hackett, “Averroes and Roger Bacon on the Harmony
of Religion and Philosophy,” in A Straight Path. Studies in Medieval Phihsophy and Cul­
ture. Essays in Honor of Arthur Hyman, ed. Jeremiah Hackett, et al. (Washington D.C.,
1988), 98-112; idem, “Philosophy and Theology in Roger Bacon’s Opus maius,” in
Phibsophy and the God of Abraham: Essays in Memory of James A. Weisheipl, O.P., ed.
R. James Long (Toronto, 1991), 57; idem, “Practical Wisdom,” 55-109.
60 The quotation comes from Zambelli, Speculum astronomiae, 7. I have modeled
what I say here on one of Zambelli’s arguments for locating the Speculum astronomiae
before 1277: see ibid., 6-8, 52-3.
61 O H I V, p. 7. For earlier attempts to use this comment to date Bacon’s Secretum,
see ibid., 267; Williams, “Roger Bacon,” 62-3.
 378 STEVEN J. WILLIAMS
Bacon links the purveyors of this doctrine with the “many abomi­
nable men who dispose many to the worst errors of Antichrist.”62
Clearly he must have judged this a heinous doctrine to excoriate it
so. His Communia naturalium might provide a key for understanding
what it was. In this work, Bacon discusses three “abominable errors”
in philosophy that were then being espoused by leading Arts profes­
sors in Paris.63 It is the second of the three that especially exercises
Bacon, viz., the unity of the intellect, defended by the doctrine of
the “double truth”: Bacon decries monopsychism as “insane and
against reason, against faith . . . [and destroying] the laws of moral
philosophy”; he decries its proponents as vilissimi heretici.64 The many
pages Bacon spends on his discussion also shows how greatly this
teaching and its teachers disturbed him.656If we can link the Communia
naturalium to the Secretum on this issue, then the current historical
consensus for the start of heterodox Aristotelianism— 1263-65—yields
a terminus ante quern of ca. 1280 for Bacon’s Secretum. While this goes
against the argument presented in the preceding paragraph, it accords
roughly with the general hypothesis locating Bacon’s work close to
the Condemnation of 1277, and gives it independent support.
Bacon’s reasons for undertaking his work were twofold. First of
all, there was the goal of preservation. Bacon thought that the Secretum
was under attack and that its best parts were being censored. For
Bacon, Aristotle was the summus philosophorum.® Not only had Aristotle
composed exoteric works of philosophy, Bacon believed, but also spe­
cial books not intended for the common herd.67 Among the latter
was the Secretum, written in Aristotle’s old age, and containing awe­
some secrets revealed nowhere else in his writings.68*Obviously, then,
it was necessary to have the complete text of Aristotle’s letter as it
came from his own hand. Bacon frequently gave vent to dissatisfac­
tion concerning the quality of the available translations of Aristotle,
62 O H I V, 7.
63 O H I III, 284-94.
64 Ibid., 286-7. Cf. Bacon’s comment in Compendium studii theobgbae, 82: “Sic igitur
patet insania Averrois et multiplex eius fatuitas, quae stultos cogit multipliciter in
errorem.”
65 O H I III, 286-91.
66 Similar expressions of praise can be found in O H I I, 11; Opus mams I, 55, 392;
Opus maius II, 244; Brewer, 6, 81.
67 O H I II, 7; O H I III, 249.
68 That Aristode had written the Secretum in his old age: O H I V, 1, 26; Opus
maius I, 393.
ROGER BACON AND THE SECRET OF SECRETS 379
and this is piquantly expressed in his Secretum.®* Repeatedly Bacon
complains about the quality of the manuscripts at his disposal;70 repeat­
edly he expresses his frustration at textual corruptions and Arabic
words;71 repeatedly he mentions the need to look in other copies of
the Secretum and to consult apothecaries and doctors about particular
medicinal ingredients.72
Equally important, Bacon was playing Aristotle to some princely
Alexander, a mentoring role he had already taken on in his work for
the pope.73 Frustrated, perhaps, at not having received financial sup­
port from the papacy for his ideas, Bacon decided to try his luck
somewhere else.74 His intention was to send his Secretum privately to
some contemporary king or prince. The edition is personalized, with
69 O H I V, 2. See the discussions of Bacon’s dissatisfaction with the Latin Aristo­
telian corpus by John Edwin Sandys, “Roger Bacon,” Proceedings of the British Academy
6 (1914), 382-3; Charles Borromee Vandewalle, Roger Bacon dans Thisbire de k phibbgie
(Paris, 1929), 66-9.
70 O H I V, 23, 39, 172.
71 Corruptions: ibid., 23, 82, 84. Arabic words: ibid., 69, 70, 84, 87, 94, 97, 99,
100, 102, 105.
72 Ibid., 84, 97, 101, 105, 172.
73 An apparent identification with the Aristotle of the Secretum is seen in Bacon’s
mature work: just as Aristotle served as Alexander’s preceptor and counselor, so
Bacon took on a tutorial role with the pope and the Secretum’s intended recipient;
just as Aristotle sent out 2,000 men on Alexander’s authority “for knowing the truth
of things,” so Bacon claimed that he too “sent across the sea and to other diverse
regions” for experimental knowledge (Bacon himself draws the analogy in Gasquet,
502; cf. Brewer, 24; see also Easton, 114); just as Aristotle advocated secrecy and
spoke cryptically when treating certain secrets, so did Bacon, especially in connection
with alchemy (see Easton, 79, 82 n. 1); just as Aristotle promised that study of the
Secretum’s enigmas would yield all that Alexander desired to know (OHI V, 26-7,
40-2), so Bacon claimed that close reading of some of his own writings would lead
to understanding (Little, 89; O H I V, 1). On Bacon’s more general desire to play a
heroic role in the story of the transmission of knowledge, see George Molland,
“Addressing Ancient Authority: Thomas Bradwardine and Prisca Sapientia,” Annals of
Science 53 (1996), 214; idem, “The Role of Aristotle in the Epistemological Schemata
of Roger Bacon and Thomas Bradwardine,” in Arisbtk in Britain During the Middle
Ages. Proceedings of the International Conference at Cambridge, 8~11 April 1994 (Tumhout,
1996), 290.
74 Cf. Bacon’s remarks in the papal opera: “Et nullus sufficeret ad hoc [i.e., an
encyclopedic treatise on the sciences], nisi dominus papa, vel imperator, aut aliquis
rex magnificus . . .” (Brewer, 24); “Et ideo patet quod scripta principalia de sapientia
philosophiae non possunt fieri ab uno homine nec a pluribus, nisi manus prealatorum
et principum juvent sapientes cum magna virtute” (Brewer, 56); “futura pericula in
temporibus Antichristi, quibus cum Dei gratia facile esset obviare, si praelati et
principes studium promoverent et secreta naturae et artis indagarent” (Opus maius II,
222). The doublet “princes and prelates” that we see in two of the sentences here
is often used by Bacon; for two examples in the Secretum, see O H I V, 88, 105.
380 STEVEN J. WILLIAMS
Bacon directly addressing his reader numerous times as “you.”75 It is
clear here that he is speaking to a particular individual and not a
group of students or colleagues: his attitude regarding the disclosure
of nature’s secrets certainly precluded letting what he termed the
vulgus see all of his notes; only the sapientes would be worthy of this.76
That Bacon was not addressing a reader with university training is
also evident from the modest intellectual level of some of the notes,
e.g., informing the reader that a quarter of an hour equals fifteen
minutes and a third of one hour is twenty minutes.77 Given that
Bacon was in England when he completed his project and that he
talks as if his reader were English, the most obvious dedicatees are
Henry III or his son Edward I.78 What appears to be the exclusively
English provenance of the extant manuscripts of his Secretion supports
the hypothesis that Bacon’s prospective benefactor was English.79
Bacon’s project involved a significant investment in time and labor.
Though Bacon did not go to the lengths with the Secretum edition that
he had recommended in connection with the Bible—indeed it is doubt­
ful that he could have, given his circumstances and lack of Arabic—
he did go part way.80 Bacon looked at a number of manuscripts in
order to find the best readings and to find missing sections of the
Secretum that had fallen away over the course of some five decades of
frequent copying or that had been deliberately excised.81 When fina­
lizing his recension in Oxford, he collated four copies of the Secretum.82
75 See my discussion in “Roger Bacon,” 66-7.
76 The distinction between the vulgus and the sapientes is typical of Bacon’s mature
work: Opus maxus I, 9-11; Brewer, 42, 416; Little, 81; Duhem, 182; cf. n. 137 below.
In the Secretum, Bacon talks several times about “the wise” or “the wisest”: O H I V,
1, 23, 25, 117, 166.
77 O H I V, 76 n. 2, 77 n. 5. Steele {ibid., xxx) is harsher, saying that “ [Bacon’s]
explanations.. . seem in most cases to be pretty obvious, and show that he did not
expect much intelligence in the reader.”
78 See also Williams, “Roger Bacon,” 67. Note also the mention of cinque porte—
the Cinque Ports?— at the end of Aristotle’s discussion of the virtues of the num­
ber 5 (OHI V, lvi, 135). I have examined many of the early Secretum manuscripts,
and I can second Steele’s claim as to never having found these words in them.
Possibly it is Bacon’s addition.
79 Manuscripts: O H I V, vii. Witnesses: ibid., vii; Manzalaoui, “Oxford Thinkers,”
493; idem, Secretum secretorum. Mne English Versions (Oxford, 1977), xxi.
80 On Bacon and the Vulgate, see Cardinal (F.A.) Gasquet, “Roger Bacon and
the Latin Vulgate,” in Roger Bacon Essays, 89-99; G. Delorme, “Roger Bacon,” in
Dictionnaire de theologjx catholique, vol. 2 (Paris, 1932), cols. 23-7. On Bacon and Arabic,
see n. 92 below.
81 O H I V, 39, 80.
82 O H I V, 39, 172.
ROGER BACON AND THE SECRET OF SECRETS 381
Bacon’s patience and searching yielded impressive results: he was able
to produce a very good version of the text, and the edition’s complete­
ness sets it apart from the majority of extant manuscripts.83 While it
would be an exaggeration to describe his work as a “critical” edition
in the strict sense, that appelation is deserved if it is qualified with
the word “provisional”; though a partial achievement, nothing better
has been done since.84 We have seen that Bacon recognized some of
its shortcomings. But he added to these himself. It is unsettling to
realize that Bacon makes a number of silent alterations in his text,
though he had castigated just such behavior in his discussions about
the Vulgate in the papal opera.85 Perhaps Bacon felt that the deficien­
cies of the translation and the corruptions in the manuscripts gave
him a degree of scholarly licence, that his emendations simply had
to be correct, and that the specific nature of the project as a speculum
principis warranted the other changes. However explain it, it consti­
tutes a betrayal of his own excellent principles of textual scholarship.
Bacon tried to make his Secretum “user friendly.” The Latin Secretum,
just like its Arabic model, was divided into ten books whose lengths
vary significantly from one to the next; several comprise one para­
graph only, while others include many chapters. O n his own initia­
tive, Bacon reorganized the uneven ten-book format into four large
sections: on rulership; on the maintenance of health; on the marvels
of science; on physiognomy.86 He wrote a substantive introduction
primarily intended to aid the reader in understanding the Secretum’’s
astronomical references, especially in the chapters on phlebotomy and
talismans.87 He composed detailed chapter headings and put all of
them together in a table of contents.88 He added numerous utilia to
the work—seven diagrams, a chart, plus notes both in the margins
and between the lines.89 Often he alerted the reader to look in other
83 See Friedrich Wurms, Studien zu den deutschen und den lateinischen Ptosqfassungen des
pseudo-aristotelischen Secretum secretorum (Hamburg, 1970), 125.
84 See n. 160 below.
85 Steele signals a number of changes in O H I V, passim. However, some of these
are open to question, as they might have been included in one or more of Bacon’s
exemplars. For Bacon’s complaint, see Brewer, 93, 333.
86 O H I V, 28.
87 The tractatus brevis et utilis is in O H I V, 1-24. For the introduction’s rationale,
see ibid., 12, 17. Elementary lessons in astronomy/astrology were also given to the
pope: Opus maius I, 254—62; Little, 5-9.
88 O H I V, 28-35.
89 Bacon uses the word utilia to describe the astrological material that he has added
to the text (OHI V, 23), but it has an obvious wider meaning. For the diagrams
 382 STEVEN J. WILLIAMS
parts of his edition.90 Bacon, apparendy, took great care to produce
a book worthy of a prince.
Bacon’s notes take a variety of forms. There are over three score
emendations or variant readings—an impressive number showing
Bacon’s concern for his text and the attentiveness with which he
examined his exemplars.91 He also notifies the reader when he believes
that a word is a transliteration.92 Sometimes he provides a brief expli­
cation to clear up any possible uncertainty about the meaning of a
particular term or statement. And then there are the more substan­
tive notes, where Bacon proffers advice or talks about the issues that
most interest him. Some have the nature of conversational asides;
others are learned disquisitions on technical subjects; yet others pulse
with the passion typical of Bacon the polemicist.
In spite of sometimes strident criticism of scholastic philosophy,
Bacon never turned his back on it, and this is obvious in his Secretum,
where he occasionally talks like an Arts professor on the job. The
stricdy philosophical portions of Anstode’s Secretum are limited in scope,
but Bacon garnishes them with a goodly number of notes. Two chap­
ters are especially interesting in this regard. The first one presents an
emanationist, Neoplatonic cosmogony, which Bacon tries to make
orthodox and to conform to his own philosophy.93 When the text
has God beginning creation with “simple spiritual substance” or (First)
“Intelligence,” Bacon interprets this to be the angels.94 When the
original Latin has “universal soul” (que vocatur anima universalis) “going
out from” (exivit) the “simple spiritual substance,” Bacon silendy changes
and chart, see ibid., 13, 15, 18, 21, 22, 111—2. Note that the selection of glossed
passages from the Opus tertium and the De secretis operibus naturae found between the
introduction and text in Tanner 116, the oldest manuscript of Bacon’s Secretum, is
possibly due to Bacon’s initiative as well: see Williams, “Roger Bacon,” 64.
90 Besides those references from introduction to text or vice versa (Williams, “Roger
Bacon,” 59-61), see O H I V, 51, 70, 83, 94, 95, 100, 101.
91 O H I V, passim. They are introduced by the words vel or aliter.
92 Ibid., 69, 70, 84, 87, 94, 97, 99, 100, 102. Though Bacon implies in the Com­
pendium studii philosophiae that he will treat Arabic grammar some time in the future
(Brewer, 495), based on the Secretum it seems that late in his life Bacon had not made
much progress at all in mastering this language: see O H I V, xxx; Manzalaoui, “Oxford
Thinkers,” 481-2; also relevant is Maurice Bouyges, “Roger Bacon, a-t-il lu des
livres arabes?” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et litteraire du moyen age 5 (1930), 311-5.
93 See the helpful comments by Manzalaoui, “Oxford Thinkers,” 486-7.
94 O H I V, 127 n. 2, 132 n. 1. Mahmoud Manzalaoui, in Pseudo-Aristotle, The Secret
o f Secrets: Sources and Influences, ed. W.F. Ryan and Charles B. Schmitt (London, 1982),
60, mistakenly attributes the “universaliter” to the translator. For a similar change,
see O H I V, lv, 131 line 19.
ROGER BACON AND THE SECRET OF SECRETS 383
the former to “what is universally called soul” (que vocatur universaliter
anima) and glosses exivit—a word that takes the book perilously close
to a theory of cosmogonic necessitation—with “made by God through
creation” (per creacionem a Deo factam).95 Next comes hyle (prime mat­
ter), which Bacon defines in a long note,96 and from that the celestial
spheres: silently changing their number from nine to ten (thus bring­
ing it into line with what he takes to be Aristotle’s position as well
as with other authorities), Bacon explains something of the difference
of opinion that exists on this issue and then refers his reader back to
his introduction.97 The next chapter discusses the development of soul
in Man from infancy to adulthood. Bacon changes the division of
the soul from the Secretum's two to the standard Aristotelian triad of
vegetative, sensitive, and intellective.98 He also twice finesses the text
with his explanations so as to pull it away from any implication of
the Averroist doctrine of the unity of the intellect.99
True to the nature of the Secretum as a speculum principis, Bacon
gives political and ethical advice to his princely reader. In the chap­
ter where Aristotle admonishes Alexander to support education and
subvent schools, Bacon observes that ancient kings did this because
they were instructed in philosophy; he then quotes a remark attrib­
uted to Henry I that “an illiterate king is a crowned ass.”100 The
chapter heading “On the choice of worthy ambassadors” has Bacon
urging his reader to “note this chapter just as all the others,”101 and
a gloss to the heading of the succeeding chapter finds Bacon reminding
95 O H I V, liv, 127.
96 Ibid., 127 n. 5.
97 Ibid., liv, 128 and n. 1; also 13-4. A belief in ten orbs is characteristic of
Bacon’s mature work in his Parisian commentaries he apparently held that there
were eight and then nine celestial spheres: see Pierre Duhem, Le systeme du monde.
Histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon a Copemic, vol. 3, pt. 2 (Paris, 1915), 269—
70, 275-6, 413-4; Sharp, Franciscan Philosophy, 152-3.
98 O H I V, lv, 130.
99 When the text has the anima sensibilis coming to the body from outside, de illo
loco, Bacon’s gloss says misleadingly scilicet, de utero. And when the text has the per­
fected human soul being taken up to the firmament of the Intelligence “by means
of the universal soul” (a virtute anime universalis), Bacon omits the word anima (OHI V,
lv, 131). See also Easton, 84; Manzalaoui, “Oxford Thinkers,” 487.
100 O H I V, 58. The fine that ends the chapter might be Bacon’s as well: “Quam
vile igitur est quod famosi et senes in studio ignorant hec que puelle solebant scire”
(ibid., 59). I have examined many of the Secretum manuscripts dating from the early
fourteenth century and before, and I have yet to find these words. Steele is more
definite in his conclusion than I: ibid., 59 n., 271.
101 Ibid., 147.
 384 STEVEN J. WILLIAMS
that no one in a state be without duties and that everyone be “use­
fully” employed.102 When Aristotle counsels that a king have riches,
Bacon cautions that immoderate concern for such could lead not to
happiness but its opposite.103 But such comments are found only here
and there in the text. What one would have to characterize as a
certain lack of interest in the Secretum as a “mirror for princes” is
even manifest in the section of the book dealing specifically with
rulership. While it is true that its elaborate chapter titles have been
carefully done, the glossing is infrequent and perfunctory; Bacon makes
some little emendations and occasional explanations, but he says
virtually nothing of consequence. Similarly, in the chapter entitled
“On the marvels of Justice and the goods that come from it” found
in Section 3, Bacon makes only one rather trite political observation
(“people remote from just kings and emperors become their friends
and subjects because [the rulers] are just, as history teaches”); the
remainder of his comments are more properly described as philo­
sophical.104 While it would be incorrect to say that Bacon did not
value the Secretion's edificatory dimension—his other work, especially,
contradicts this—it remains that something else interested him more.
That “something more,” of course, is science.
In his Secretum Bacon stresses the utility of physiognomy and astrol­
ogy for the prince. Like his scholastic confreres, Bacon considered
physiognomy an important discipline. In a long gloss near the start
of Section 4, Bacon describes physiognomy as “a great and beautiful
science and wisdom”; twice in this same note he describes it as
utilissima.105 According to Bacon, physiognomy is useful “for avoiding
bad people and associating with good ones”; specifically, the king
familiar with its rules can choose his friends, ministers, and prelates
wisely.106 A knowledge of astronomy is indispensable in this regard,
too. Knowing nativities can help a ruler in selecting an able counse­
lor.107 It can tell him the appropriate time to do things and when
not to; it can help him in “procuring innumerable useful things and
avoiding bad things.”108 And if a ruler has a physician learned in
102 Ibid., 148.
103 Ibid., 95.
104 Ibid., 123-6.
105 Ibid., 165-6.
106 Ibid., 166.
107 Ibid., 136.
108 Ibid., 6. See also ibid., 55, 112-3.
ROGER BACON AND THE SECRET OF SECRETS 385
astrology at his disposal, that ruler’s own possibly negative complex­
ions or tendencies can be counteracted and even turned toward the
good through the application of the appropriate remedies.109
A serious interest in medicine is evident in many of the comments
that Bacon adds to the text. Bacon speaks in his Secretum as an authority
on medical matters, and when Aristode is giving advice on the subject,
Bacon is often there to correct, to explain, to elaborate, to advocate.
The confection of medicines depends on both “study and personal
experience [experientia] ,” Bacon says.110 He expatiates about an anti­
dote for poisons compounded of nuts, figs, and rue (even including
a recipe and specifying the dosage) that is utilissima for kings and
others of high station who must worry about such things.111 In an
extended note, he seconds Aristode’s recommendation of rhubarb for
its various salutary effects: nothing is worth more for the human
body, claims Bacon; he then gives detailed directions for its use.112
When Aristode describes the “necessary” methods for relieving stom­
ach pain—including “embracing a warm and beautiful girl”—Bacon
glosses the aforesaid word with utilis.113 Exercise is “necessary and
useful,” Bacon observes; old wine is “useful” in the fall.114 To Aristode’s
statement that Alexander rub his teeth and gums with aromatic herbs,
Bacon appends a list of appropriate plants.115 To Aristode’s warning
about drinking too much during meals, Bacon presents Avicenna’s
opinion, and then in a nice touch, concludes by observing that socia­
bility requires a bit of drinking at table which, done moderately, will
not result in any serious harm .116 Bacon clarifies Aristode’s directions
for sleeping after a meal first on the left side and then on the right:
this is fine for those of sound disposition, but those who are weak
ought to begin on the left.117 Bacon also emphasizes the importance
of astrology for medicine, recommending, for example, that medicines
109 Ibid., 5. One such remedy is the panacea Gloria inestxmabilis\ see pp. 386-7, 390
below. Cf. Opus maius I, 252-3 for a similar discussion of astrology’s value to the
prince.
110 O H I V, 120.
111 O H I V, 88.
112 “Nichil plus valet corpori humano . . . ” (ibid., 70). Practicing what he preached,
Bacon ate rhubarb regularly on Aristode’s authority to take care of a problem with
phlegm: O H I IX, 151, 155.
113 Ibid., 73.
1,4 Ibid., 71, 83.
115 Ibid., 69.
116 Ibid., 72-3.
117 Ibid., 73.
 386 STEVEN J. WILLIAMS
be exposed to the beneficial rays of the stars; the same ought to be
done with the sick and insane.118 Extensive notes, a diagram, and a
lunar chart, plus a reference to the astrological figures in his intro­
duction, follow the chapter on phlebotomy.119
But what really excites Bacon in the Secretum are those “greatest
secrets”—as it says in the opening superscription to his introduction—
“to which Man or human invention can arrive at in this life.”120
One of them is a panacea known as Gloria inestimabilis, whose com­
position was perhaps revealed to Adam himself. As described by
Aristotle, this wonder drug includes eight separate medicines—each
with its own wonderful benefits—that are mixed with a special “honey”
plus pulverized precious substances in a golden vase, then left for
eight days exposed to celestial influences.121 Bacon makes observa­
tions all along the way, and at the end of both this chapter and his
introduction Bacon extols the panacea’s effects. This drug, he says,
“extends life to the natural limits that God constituted”; it confers
health “as much to the soul as the body.”122 It is expensive to make,
however, and the ingredients are difficult to find.123 Unfortunately,
few physicians use it, “which brings infinite harm to the world” be­
cause prelates and princes are not thereby made better through its
marvelous properties.124 In an extraordinary passage, Bacon testifies
to witnessing its transformative power. He saw, he claims, a learned
physician use this drug to cure “the greatest prince in France after
the king” of maladies both physical and moral.125 The doctor, Bacon
goes on, added to the mix “bone of a stag’s heart” (in fact, an ossifi­
cation), rosemary, and— “if I well recall”—some pills of viper’s flesh.126
As Clement C J. Webb has pointed out, the person described by Bacon
could be none other than Alphonse of Poitiers.127 Lending Bacon’s
tale credibility is the fact that Alphonse was indeed seriously ill in
1252 and about a year or so later had recovered fully; Alphonse was
118 Ibid., 8-9.
119 Ibid., 108-13.
120 Ibid., 1.
121 Ibid., 98-105.
122 Ibid., 105.
123 Ibid., 24, 105. Cf. Opus maius II, 212.
124 O H I V, 105.
125 Ibid., 105.
126 Ibid., 106.
127 Clement C.J. Webb, “Roger Bacon on Alphonse of Poitiers,” in Essays in His­
tory Presented to Reginald Lane Poole, ed. H.W.C. Davis (Oxford, 1927), 290-300.
ROGER BACON AND THE SECRET OF SECRETS 387
residing in Paris at this time, serving as co-regent of France while his
elder brother Louis IX remained in the East after the failed Seventh
Crusade. Bacon, too, was in France for at least part of Alphonse’s
tenure in office, because he tells us that he had seen the leader of
the Pastoureaux with his own eyes (this would have been in 1251).128
Another secret lies hidden in the Secretum!s chapter on alchemy.
“Oh Alexander,” Aristotle intones, “I wish to give to you the great­
est secret of secrets . . . ”; he then provides a rapid overview of alchem­
ical doctrine that concludes with the famous Emerald Table of
Hermes.129 Again, Bacon does not fail to mention the utility of the
subject under discussion.130 Again, he mentions that the task is expen­
sive.131 His notes here are frequent, though he says several times that
his exposition must be brief because it is forbidden to divulge too
much of this magnificent wisdom. But for those who can figure out
what it all means, there is the promise of purifying elements to their
very essence.132 With such an ability, a person could make nobler
metals from base ones—in particular gold, which Bacon describes as
“the father of miracles, that is, through it marvels are done in human
affairs.”133 What these marvels are Bacon leaves unsaid here. That
success is possible, however, he leaves no doubt.
A similar degree of mystery hangs over another maximum secretum,
viz., that of “pacifying regions so that they obey [a king] freely with­
out coercion,” as Bacon’s chapter heading describes it.134 Early on in
the Secretum, we read a query of Alexander to his teacher asking what
he ought to do with the Persians he has just conquered: he describes
them as an intelligent people who like to dominate others, but because
these qualities would make them difficult to rule, he proposes to kill
them all. To this, Aristotle responds: “If you are not able to change
the air and water of the land and the disposition of the states, carry
out your proposal. If you can govern them with goodness, you will
listen to them with kindness.”135 Though Philip of Tripoli’s rendering
128 Opus maius I, 401-2.
129 O H I V, 114—7.
130 “. . .propter bonum reipublice procurandum” {ibid., 117). See also the incipit
to Section 3 {ibid., 114).
131 Ibid., 117. Cf. Brewer, 40-1, 46.
132 O H I V, 117. Cf. Opus maius II, 214—5; Little, 13; O H I IX, 160.
133 O H I V, 116.
134 O H I V, 157.
135 “Si non potes illius terre mutare aerem et aquam insuper et disposicionem
civitatum, imple tuum propositum. Si potes dominari super eos cum bonitate, exaudies
 388
STEVEN J. WILLIAMS
of this passage somewhat garbles the Arabic, it remains clear that
Aristotle’s first option is a rhetorical possibility only and is not to be
taken seriously; rather, Aristotle wants Alexander to spare the Persians
and to rule them well. But in a significant misunderstanding of the
text, Bacon takes Aristotle to mean that it is possible to change the
bad qualities of the land and the air of a region into good ones so
that bad mores will be similarly changed to the good.136 According
to Bacon, such an alteration can be effected by means of a powerful
amulet whose fabrication Aristotle describes. Unlike with the two other
great secrets, however, Bacon says comparatively little in this part of
the Secretum—perhaps because Bacon believed that such potent knowl­
edge was just too dangerous to communicate, and it might fall into
the wrong hands.137 As Bacon says repeatedly in his later work,
citing Aristotle’s admonition of secrecy to Alexander at the begin­
ning of the Secretum, the person who reveals secrets to the unworthy
breaks the heavenly seal and many evils will befall him.138
The Secretum shows up with some frequency in Bacon’s mature
writings. It is employed in support of the idea that God had first
revealed all the secrets of philosophy to the Hebrew patriarchs and
prophets139 and that Aristotle believed in creation.140 Bacon refers to
Aristotle of the Secretum on the number of fixed stars141 and the great­
eos cum benignitate” {ibid., 38). Most early copies of the Secretum omit the “non” in
the first sentence, which improves the sense; however, only a study of the manu­
scripts can determine if the “non” appeared in Philip’s autograph. The Arabic passage
reads this way: “If you are bent upon killing all of them, and you are able to do so
by reason of your power over them, you cannot change their climate and their
country. Therefore conquer them by kindness and benevolence . . .” {ibid., 177).
136 Ibid., 38-9. Bacon’s (mis)understanding of this passage was first pointed out
in Manzalaoui, “Oxford Thinkers,” 491; see also Mario Grignaschi, in Sources and
Influences, 11.
137 Cf. Bacon’s words to the pope in the Opus tertium: “Sed in Opere Minore ubi
de coelestibus tractavi, exposui magis ista [i.e., “philosophical” magic, including tal­
ismans], ubi maxima secreta naturae tetigi, quae non sunt cuilibet exponenda, sed
solis sapientissimis viris” (Brewer, 99).
138 O H I V, 9; cf. 41. See also Opus maius I, 10-12, 45-6; Opus Tnaius II, 204,
214-5; Brewer, 543; Little, 80; Duhem, 182.
139 O H I V, 62-3; O H I I, 45; Opm maim I, 41, 45-6, 65; Brewer, 81, 423, 544;
Compendium studii theologiae, 44—5.
140 Opm maim II, 235. Bacon was not alone in doing this. The fourteenth-century
theology master Peter of Candia informs us that some schoolmen had also cited the
Secretum to support this opinion: see Williams, “Scholarly Career,” 100.
141 O H I IV, 395. Cf. Opm maim I, 235, where other authors are cited in support
of this number.
ROGER BACON AND THE SECRET OF SECRETS 389
ness of the number 5.142 He cites the Secretum as an ethical text143 and
as an authority in practical medicine.144 But it is the Secretum!s scien­
tific secrets to which Bacon returns over and over again.
According to Bacon, it was through Aristotle’s help that Alexander
conquered the world.145 No doubt Bacon believed that Aristotle, who
had accompanied Alexander on some of his campaigns, served as
court astrologer and decided the propitiousness of the stars for the
army’s actions.146 And when a city that Alexander was besieging placed
a basilisk on its walls in order to kill the attackers, Aristotle designed
the polished surfaces that deflected the creature’s poisonous gaze back
upon itself.147 But much of what Aristotle had taught Alexander to
this purpose was contained in the Secretum.148 There is the instrumentum
terribile, the Horn of Themistius, a powerful organ whose tremendous
blast of sound could be used to call the troops or to frighten the
enemy.149 There is the plant that engenders the obedience of those
who ingest it.150 There is the stone that makes an army flee the field
of battle.151 And there is the amulet that allows the bearer to change
the atmosphere of a region and thereby change the moral qualities
of its people.152 So excited was Bacon about this maximum secretum
that once in the Opus maius, after quoting the above-mentioned
response of Aristotle to Alexander’s proposal of genocide, Bacon
exclaims, “Oh how occult is the reply, but how full of the power of
wisdom!”153 However, in another work for the pope, Bacon also hints
142 Opm maim II, 197, 402; O H I IV, 338-9.
143 O H I I, 20 (lines 32-4; cf. O H I V, 143), 21, 22, 33-4, 35; Opm maim I, 16;
Opm maim II, 247, 261, 271, 273.
144 Opm maim I, 390; Opm maim II, 204, 211; Brewer, 374; O H I IX, 150-79
passim.
145 Opm maim I, 392-3; Opm maim II, 221-2; Brewer 117, 395-6; Little, 53; Duhem,
156; Gasquet, 516. Cf. O H I V, 37-8.
146 In Opm maim I, 390, Bacon cites Aristotle’s reminder to Alexander in the
Secretum that he should do nothing without the advice of an astronomer. Also, Bacon
believes that the Secretum provides validation for the science of astrology: Opm maim I,
246, 390.
147 Opm maim I, 143; Brewer, 535.
148 Opm maim I, 392.
149 O H I V, 151.
150 Ibid., 122. Cf. Opm maim II, 216; Litde, 12, 50-1; Duhem, 154.
151 O H I V, 118. Cf. Opm maim II, 216-7; Little, 51; Duhem, 154.
152 Opm maim I, 393; Opm maim II, 216, 217; Litde, 15, 53-4; Duhem, 156-7;
Brewer, 538.
153 Opm maim I, 393.
 390 STEVEN J. WILLIAMS
at danger: the Antichrist will use such talismans, too, but “far more
powerfully than Aristode.”154
Bacon was equally excited about the Secretum"s chapter on alchemy.
Against those who rejected the possibility of alchemical transmutation
because of Aristotle’s statements at the end of Meteorology Book IV,
Bacon not only disputed the authenticity of these words but also
cited Aristode’s Secretum as proof that Aristode did believe in the science
of alchemy.155 According to Bacon, the Emerald Table offered the
prospect of virtually unlimited production of gold from other metals—
an obvious boon for the state.156 Bacon also tied it to one of his
favorite themes, viz., the prolongation of life. That it is possible to
extend the life of M an beyond his usual seventy years was suggested
to Bacon from several sources, among them the Secretum with its
panacea. Bacon referred to this amazing concoction several times in
his writings.157 The Emerald Table provided a key to its composi­
tion, describing how to make an incredibly pure form of gold far
beyond nature’s limit of twenty-four degrees— “of thirty and forty
degrees and of as many degrees as we desire,” Bacon enthuses.158
The panacea’s essential ingredient, such a super-gold would ensure
the removal of the corruptions of the body and allow it to live to its
natural end.159
Roger Bacon’s Secretum project, and his use of the Secretum in his
other work, reveals to us a man who was very much of his age.
Bacon was not alone in considering the Secretum authentic and citing
the Secretum as an authority: well-known schoolmen like Albertus
Magnus, Guibert of Tournai, and John of Wales all did the same.
Moreover, Bacon’s Secretum was one of several editions of this work
and one of a great many “mirrors for princes” produced in the thir­
teenth and early fourteenth centuries. Typical of his day are his belief
in physiognomy and astrology; his fascination with nature’s secrets
and natural magic; his acknowledgment of practicality/utility and
154 Little, 54; Duhem, 157.
155 O H I II, 6-7.
156 Ibid., 7; Little, 13, 80-1; Brewer, 544.
157 Opus maius I, 48-9; Opus maius II, 204-13 passim; Brewer, 374; Little, 13; O H I
IX, 163.
158 Opus maius II, 215.
159 Ibid., 215; Brewer 374; Little, 13, 46; O H I IX, 160. In an unpublished por­
tion of the Opus minus being edited by Dr. George Molland, Bacon also cites the
Secretum in connection with alchemy.
391
ROGER BACON AND THE SECRET OF SECRETS
experience/experiment. Similarly, his textual and philological con­
cerns were shared by a number o f others: we need only call to mind
the work done on the Bible by a team of Dominicans led by Hugh
of St Cher during the 1230’s or the improved version of the Aristo­
telian corpus prepared by Bacon’s contemporary William of Moerbeke.
But Bacon’s relationship to the Secretum also reveals to us a man
who stands out from his age—idiosyncratic, independent, and inno­
vative. Developing ideas already found among his fellow schoolmen,
Bacon sometimes pushed up to and beyond the limits reached by his
colleagues. With his Secretum, Bacon acted on his frequent remarks
concerning textual criticism and produced a semi-critical edition of
this work that is unique for the Middle Ages and that still stands as
an impressive achievement.160 Bacon also made his Secretum into a
speculum principis like no other. The conventional practicality of this
literary genre is subsumed within a synthesizing vision that is origi­
nal, indeed modern.161 Reconceiving the Secretum in terms of his own
philosophy, Bacon animated it with the seminal concept of scientia
experimental and made it speak the doctrine of utility.162 As Bacon
expressed it in his Opus tertium, “utility must be considered before
anything else.”163 No medieval thinker had ever argued the case of
utility so forcefully or hammered it home so often. In his repeated
insistance on the practical application of scientific knowledge, on its
beneficiality for the individual and the state, Bacon is the advocate
for a program that has become our own.
160 For students of the Latin Secretum, Bacon’s redaction as presented by Robert
Steele in O H I V is not only an invaluable witness to the thirteenth-century text but
also remains the best edition available, though it must be used with caution because
of Bacon’s interpolations and alterations. Willy Hermenau and Reinhold Moller have
also published editions of the Latin Secretum: see the bibliography at the end of this
chapter.
161 Cf. Crombie, Augustine to Galileo, vol. 1, 69-70: “[with Bacon we see] perhaps
the earliest explicit statement of the practical conception of the aims of science. .. .
in his conception of the immediate use of science he had almost the outlook of the
19th century.”
162 The phrase scientia experimentalis appears in OHI V, 2, 9, 24. Bacon uses the
word utilis or its relatives in ibid., 1, 6, 8, 9, 23, 28-31, 40, 55, 71, 83, 88, 98, 105
(utuntur), 113, 114, 148, 155 (propter usum), 163, 165-6. But even where such words
do no appear, their spirit is often present. Cf. the observation of A.G. Little, “Roger
Bacon,” in his Franciscan Papers, Lists, and Documents (Manchester, 1943), 80: “The
utility of knowledge is the constant theme of the works addressed to the pope.”
163 Brewer, 19.
 392 STEVEN J. WILLIAMS ROGER BACON AND THE SECRET OF SECRETS 393

Abbreviations and Bibliography . “T h e Secreta Secretorum• T h e M ediaeval E u ro p ean V ersion o f Kitab Sirr-
ul-Asrar.” Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts (University o f A lexandria) 15 (1961):
Alessio F ranco Alessio, Mito e scienza in Ruggero Bacone (M ilan, 8 3 -1 0 5 .
1957) . “T h e Pseudo-A ristotelian Sin al-asrar an d T h re e O x fo rd T hinkers o f
B rew er Fr. Rogeri Bacon: Opera quaedam hactenus inedita, ed. J.S . th e M iddle Ages.” In Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honor of Hamilton Gibb,
B rew er (London, 1859) ed. G . M akdisi, 4 8 0 -5 0 0 . Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1965.
Compendium studii Roger Bacon, Compendium of the Study of Theology: Edition and . “T h e Pseudo-A ristotelian Kitab Sin al-asrar: Facts a n d Problem s.” Oriens
theologiae Translation with Introduction and Notes, ed. T h o m a s S. 2 3 -4 (1974): 147-257.
M aloney (Leiden, 1988) . Secretum Secretorum. Nine English Versions. O xford: O xford U niversity Press,
C row ley T h eo d o re Crow ley, Roger Bacon: The Problem of the Soul in 1977.
his Philosophical Commentaries (Louvain, 1950) M oller, R einhold. Hiltgart von Hiimheim, Mittelhochdeutsche Prosaiibersetzung des
D uhem Pierre D u h em , Un fragment inedit de I’Opus tertium de Roger Secretum Secretorum. Berlin: A kadem ie V erlag, 1963.
Bacon precede d’une etude sur ce fragment (Q uaracchi, 1909) Paravicini Bagliani, A gostino. Medicina e scienze della natura alia corte dei papi
E aston S tew art C. Easton, Roger Bacon and His Search for a Uni­ nel Duecento Spoleto: C en tro Italiano di Studi sull’A lto M edioevo, 1991.
versal Science: A Reconsideration of the Life and Work of Roger
Bacon in the Light of His Own Stated Purposes (New York, R y an , W .F., an d C harles B. Schm itt, ed. Pseudo-Aristotle, The Secret of Secrets:
1952) Sources and Influences. L ondon: T h e W a rb u rg Institute, 1982.
G asquet F.A. G asquet, “A n U npublished F rag m en t o f a W ork W illiams, Steven J . “T h e Scholarly C a reer o f the Pseudo-A ristotelian Secretum
by R oger B acon,” English Historical Review 12 (1897), 494— Secretorum in the T h irte e n th a n d E arly F o u rteen th C en tu ries.” P h.D . diss.
517 unpublished, N orthw estern University, 1991. [a revised an d expanded ver­
Greek Grammar The Greek Grammar of Roger Bacon and a Fragment of his sion o f this w ork is forthcom ing]
Hebrew Grammar, ed. E d m o n d N o lan an d S.A. H irsch . “T h e E arly C irculation o f the Pseudo-A ristotelian Secret of Secrets in
(C am bridge, 1902) the W est: T h e P apal a n d Im perial C o u rts.” Micrologus 2 (1994): 127-44.
Little Part of the Opus tertium of Roger Bacon, ed. A .G . L itde \ “R o g er B acon a n d H is E dition o f the Pseudo-A ristotelian Secretum
(A berdeen, 1912) Secretorum.” Speculum 69 (1994): 5 7 -7 3 .
OHI Opera hactenus inedita Jratris Rogeri Baconi, fascs. I -X V I W urm s, Friedrich. Studien zu den deutschen und den lateinischen Prosafassungen des
(O xford, 1905 [?]-1941) pseudo-aristotelischen Secretum secretorum. Ph.D . diss., Universitat H am burg, 1970.
Opus maius The ‘Opus Majlis’ of Roger Bacon, vols. I—II, ed. J o h n H en ry
Bridges (O xford, 1897)
Roger Bacon Essays Roger Bacon: Essays Contributed by Various Writers on the Occa­
sion of the Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of His Birth,
ed. A .G . Little (O xford, 1914)

Bacon, R oger. Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi. Fasc. V , Secretum secretorum
cum glossis et notulis. Ed. R o b e rt Steele. O xford: C laren d o n Press, 1920.
G rignaschi, M ario. “L ’origine e t les m etam orphoses d u Sin al’asrar.” Archives
d’histoire doctrinale et litteraire du moyen age 43 (1976): 9 -1 1 2 .
. “L a diffusion d u Secretum secretorum (Sirr-al-’asrar) dans l’E u ro p e occi-
dentale.” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et litteraire du moyen age 47 (1980): 7 -6 9 .
H erm enau, Willy. Franzosische Bearbeitungen des Secretum Secretorum und ihr Verhaltnis
zu der lateinischen Ubersetzung des Philippus Tripolitanus. P h.D . diss., U niversitat
G ottingen, 1922.
M anzalaoui, M ahm oud. “T h e Secreta Secretorum in English T h o u g h t an d Litera­
ture from the F ourteenth to the S eventeenth C en tu ry w ith a P relim inary
Survey o f the O rigins o f the Secreta.” Ph.D . diss. unpublished, O xford
University, 1954.
 16. A ROGER BACON BIBLIOGRAPHY (1985-1995)

Thomas S. Maloney

In 1959 Franco Alessio published an annotated bibliography of works

by and about Roger Bacon under the title “Un secolo di studi su
Ruggero Bacone (1848-1957)” covering the years indicated in the
tide.1 In 1987 a second bibliography picked up where Alessio left off
and was published (without annotation) under the tide “A Roger Bacon
Bibliography (1957-1985).”2 What is presented here represents a survey
of the major bibliographical works on medieval philosophy covering
publications from 1986 to 1995. A few of the entries reflect works
from an earlier period omitted from the preceding lists, and a few
others announce work in progress. As a general rule, only those works
have been selected in which Bacon is given significant attention.

Works by Bacon

Bottin, Francesco, tr. La scienza sperimentale: Lettera a Clemente IV. La

scienza sperimentale: I segreti delVarte e della natura. I classici dei pensiero,
Sezione II: Medioevo e Renascimento. Milan: Rusconi, 1990.
Lindberg, David C., ed. and tr. Roger Bacon and the Origins of Perspectiva
in the Middle Ages: A Critical Edition of the “Perspectiva,” with English
Translation, Introduction, and Notes. Oxford University Press. Forth­
coming, 1995.
Linden, Stanton J., ed. The Mirror of Akhimy. English Renaissance
Hermeticism, 4. New York: Garland, 1992.
Maloney, Thomas S., tr. (English) Roger Bacon’s Summulae diakctices.
Forthcoming, 1997.
Molland, George, ed. and tr. (English) “Roger Bacon’s Geometria
speculativa.” In Vestigia Mathematica: Studies in Medieval and Early Mod­
em Mathematics in Honour of H.H.L. Busard, pp. 265-303. Edited by

1 Revista critica de storia della Jilosofia 14 (1959): 81-102.

2 Jeremiah M.G. Hackett and Thomas S. Maloney, New Scholasticism 61 (1987):
184-207.
396 THOMAS S. MALONEY
M. Folkerts and J.P. Hogendijk. Amsterdam, Adanta, GA: Editions
Rodopi, 1993.
. ed. and tr. (English) Roger Bacon’s Opus tertium. In progress.
Works about Bacon
Aisa Moreu, Diego. “Rogerio Bacon, eslabon revelante en la tradition
cientifica que va de los Griegos a la Revolution cientifica de los
siglos xvi-xvii.” In Adas del I Congreso Nacional de Filosojia Medieval.
Zaragoza 12-14 December 1990, pp. 165-80. Zaragoza: Ibercaja,
1992.
Agrimi, Jole, and Crisciani, Chiara. “Per una ricerca su Experimentum-
experimenta: riflessione epistemologica e tradizione medica (secoli xiii-
xv).” In Presenza del lessico greco e latino nelle lingue contemporanee, pp.
9-49. Edited by Pietro Janni and Innocenzo Mazzini. Macerata:
Pubblicazioni della Facolta di Lettere e Filosofia, 1991.
Alessio, Franco. Introduzione a Ruggero Bacone. I filosofi, 44. Bari: Laterza,
1985.
------ . “Ruggero Bacone fra filologie e grammatiche” in Aspetti della
letteratura latina nel secolo X III, pp. 281-317. Edited by C. Leonardi
and G. Orlandi. Atti del primo convegno intemazionale di studi
delTAssociazione per il Medioevo e 1’Umanesimo latini (AAMUL),
Perugia, 3-5 ottobre 1983. Perugia, Firenze: Regione dell’Umbria,
La Nuova Italia, 1986.
------ . “Simplicitas e paupertas da Ruggero Bacone a Guglielmo di
Occam”. Ricerche storiche 13 (1983): 659-95.
Anawati, G.C. “La recontre de deux cultures, en Occident, au Moyen
Age: Dialogue Islamo-Chretien et activite missionaire.” Elul 29
(1989): 155-78.
Ancona, Cristina D ’. “Philosophies in libro De Causis: La recezione del
1liber de causis5 come opera aristotelica nei commend di Ruggero
Bacone, dello ps. Enrico di Gand e dello ps. Adama di Bocfeld”.
Documenti e studi sulla tradizione Jilosofica medievale 2 (1991): 611-49.
Ashworth, E. Jennifer. “Analogy and Equivocation in Thirteenth-
Century Logic: Aquinas in Context.” Mediaeval Studies 54 (1992):
511-8.
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 17. EPILOGUE: ROGER BACON’S MORAL SCIENCE

Jeremiah Hackett

The reader of the Opus maius cannot but notice the constant series of
references forward to the seventh part of that work, the Moralis
philosophia. Bacon sees the whole work as a task of moral persuasion.
He had set out to persuade Pope Clement IV of the need to reform
the study of Languages and of Nature in the Universities of the Latin
West. Bacon saw the study of these Languages and Sciences as a
moral task. They were not just value-neutral activities. In the end,
they would help the human being to find salvation, but in themselves
they were human pursuits which were absolutely necessary for a better
human life.
Through the Opus maius, Bacon constantly reminds the reader that
his discussions of language, truth, mathematics and perspective are
guided by and toward moral reflection. The truths which are estab­
lished in these domains become principles for use in scientia experimentalis
and in moralis phibsophia. Scientia experimentalis, which must be taken as
a model for a natural science and as a phenomenology of experi­
ence, is the penultimate science, while moral science is the queen of
the sciences. Bacon, therefore, subordinates all the sciences of lan­
guage and nature and till parts of philosophy to moral science. This
reductio artium ad moralem has close parallels with Bonaventure’s Reductio
artium ad theologiam, so much so that Bacon admits that in his view
theology simply thinks about the above sciences in the light of the
teaching of Christ.1

Bacon on the Structure of Moral Philosophy

What in Bacon’s view, is the object of moral thought? With what

does moral philosophy deal? The answer to these questions is stated
clearly by Bacon. “This science is preeminently active, that is, operative,

Moralis philosophia, ed. Massa, 4.

406 JEREMIAH HACKETT
and deals with our actions in this life and the other life.”2 Thus,
moral science is concerned with human actions. But a human being
performs many different kinds of action, and many of the linguistic
and natural sciences are concerned with human actions. Bacon qualifies
this and states that although certain sciences are active and opera­
tive, they are concerned “. . . with artificial and natural works which
refer to the speculative intellect, and they are not concerned with
those things which refer to the practical intellect, which latter is called
practical because it exercises the operation of good and evil.”3 Human
actions in the morally strict sense of the word have to do with good
and evil, and in this sense they are moral or immoral. Thus the
term “practical” must be taken in a restricted sense as having to do
with actions of conduct which are good or evil. If the term “practical”
is taken is a broad sense, it can mean any of the practical sciences.
But in moral science the term “practical” is used autonomastically
on account of the principal actions or operations of man which are
concerned with virtues and vices, and with felicity and misery in the
other life.
Later in the Moralis philosophia, Bacon notes that the operabilia are
“. .. more difficult to know than the objects of speculative knowl­
edge.” Further, the corruption of the human will and our irascible
nature makes it difficult to perform the works of human action
(operabilia). What then are the main operabilia for Bacon? They are
“. . . the highest truths concerning God and divine worship, eternal
life, the laws of justice, the glory of peace and the sublimity of the
virtues.”4 In Bacon’s view, the human being suffers a blindness in
moral matters. This list of topics roughly covers the first three parts
of the Moralis philosophia.
Moral Science for Bacon falls into two parts. The first dealing
with the speculative side of moral issues has to do with speculative
truth about life and morality. The second part deals with the prac­
tical side of moral life, that is with the process of moral persuasion.
“The practical half [of moral philosophy] is related to the first half
as the curing of the sick and the conserving of health, which are
treated in practical medicine, are related to that part of medicine
which teaches what health is___ ”5 And just as there are doctors
2 Ibid., 3.
3 Ibid., 3 phies in the Middle Ages, Vol. I, Ottawa, 1995, 367-77; see also Danielle Crivelli,
4 Ibid., 3.
5 Ibid., 248.
EPILOGUE! ROGER BACON’S MORAL SCIENCE 407
who know about medicine but who cannot practice it, there are those
who know about the works of human action (operabilia) but who are
unable to practice them. Part One deals with the object and method
of Moral science, the outline of a philosophical anthropology based
on texts from the Platonists, Aristotelians and Stoics to argue for a
basically Augustinian view of human being. Part two is an oudine of
social order taken from Avicenna. It is very brief.
Part three, the largest section in the book is concerned with Virtue
and Vice and it is written deliberately as a moral handbook for the
Prince and the Prelate. For the most part this section is taken verba­
tim from the letters and works of Seneca, which has recently come
to Bacon’s attention (i.e. ca. 1266). In this case, advising the Pope in
Italy about the existence of Seneca’s Dialogues was like taking coals to
Newcastle. While the Dialogues had remained unknown north of the
Alps until 1266, the had been well known in the Italy for some time.6
This moral handbook with Bacon’s glosses are very important in that
it accentuates stoic themes in Bacon’s moral philosophy. When one
compares Aquinas and Bacon on the passions, one notices the differ­
ence. The former for the most part uses Aristotle’s Rhetoric in his analy­
sis of the passions; the latter uses Seneca’s De ira and related works.7
Parts four to six have to do with moral persuasion. We have treated
this topic above in the chapter on Rhetoric and Poetics. Yet an issue
arises in regard to Part IV (Persuasion and Proof about authentic
Religion) which has very close connections with Opus maius part IV,
and which raises serious issues for Bacon’s whole program of a moral
science. Further, this matter is tied in closely with his scientia experi­
mental, third prerogative and with Bacon’s advice for the Prince in
his Secretum secretorum. Early in Moralis philosophia, Bacon remarks:
A nd so if I cite authorities from places o th er th a n those w hich are
co n tain ed in books o f m orals, it should be considered th a t these ought
to be placed ap p ro p riately in this science. N o r can we d en y th a t those
6 See L.D. Reynolds, “The Medieval Tradition of Seneca’s Dialogues," The Classical
Quarterly (New Series), Vol. XVIII, 2, (1968), 355—72. See p. 363, John of Garland
knew about the Dialogues yet the manuscript of this work is associated with three
Franciscans in Paris in the 1260—70’s, Roger Bacon, Guibert of Toumai and John
of Wales. Bacon’s discovery of this work was significant for north of the Alps.
7 Jeremiah Hackett, “Roger Bacon on Magnanimity and Virtue,” in B. Carlos
Bazan, Eduardo Andujar and Leonard G. Sbrocchi, eds. Moral and Political Philoso­
“Iiberta et interiorita: Seneca, una fonte per la Filosofia Morale di Ruggero Bacone,”
Ibid., Vol. II, 837-843.
 408 JEREMIAH HACKETT
things are w ritten in the books o f this science, since in L atin we only
have the philosophy o f A ristotle, A vicenna a n d A verroes in parts, an d
they are the principle authorities in m atters o f this kind.8
What is Bacon attempting to do? Since Part IV of Moralis philosophia
is an astrological theory of the rise and fall of human civilizations
or as he calls them “Sectae”. This part draws heavily on al-Farabi,
but also on Abu Ma'shar. One can see that Bacon is making appli­
cation here of his theory of Astrological influence which he develops
in Opus maius, part four and which he offers the Prince in his edition
of the Secretum secretorum. And here again, one notices the great influence
of Abu Ma'shar in his Introductorium maius and in his De magnis coni-
unctionibus. This may not be a problem for either Albertus Magnus
or Roger Bacon who viewed Abu M a'shar as the auctor in astronomiam
but it certainly was not acceptable to the younger theologians in
Paris. I wish to suggest that Bacon’s strong commitment to Seneca’s
theory of the emotions {De ira) and his reliance on Abu Ma'shar
seemed to push him, in the eyes of his critics, in the direction of a
universal determinism, even if that was not his own explicit intention.
This issue did not die with Roger Bacon. These very texts of Bacon
on the application of judicial astrology to human destiny are found
again at the beginning of the 14th century in John of Paris’ De
probationeJidei.9
More importantly, for medieval moral theory, we see here the emer­
gence of a trend which will manifest itself in French, and Italian
Court life and culture in the early 14th century and later. That is,
in the context of court life, the Astrologos plays the role of psycholo­
gist, sociologist and moralist.10 And this kind o f moral prediction is
very different from the moral science of the university Arts faculty.
In the latter, the text of Aristotle’s Mcomachean Ethics is primary, al­
though it will be supplemented by Seneca, Cicero and St Augustine.
Thus, we can speak of two separate traditions of moral inquiry in
the Late Middle Ages. There is the concern with the theory of Ethics
in the Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics and there is the
8 Moralis philosophia, 5.
9 I am preparing a critical edition of this text.
10 See Graziella Federici Vescovini and Francesco Barocelli, eds., Filosofia, scienza
e astrologia nel Trecento europeo: Biagio Pelacani Parmense, (II Poligrfo: Centro Studi di
Civilta Del Medioevo E Del Rinascimento “Biagio Pelacani Parmense”), 1992.
EPILOGUE.' ROGER BACON’S MORAL SCIENCE 409
other tradition of “applied science” which flourished in Court Life
and in the Italian Universities and which spread from there.
Elsewhere I have argued that much of the difference between Bona-
venture and Bacon had to do with Bacon’s application of mathematics
{astrobgia) to the prediction of human behavioral trends. Further, Bacon
develops his own doctrine of magnanimity which in its main aspects
are orientated toward the Prince and Prelate. As I have noted else­
where, Bacon’s doctrine of magnanimity owes more to Aristotle than
to St Bernard. Further, his decided preference of Seneca over Aristotle
on the issue of Anger {De ira) put him in opposition to Aquinas in
this matter.
Here, I wish to argue that with Bacon we get a presentiment of
Machiavelli before his time. As we saw above concerning the appli­
cation of the scientia experimentalis, the governor or the general must
be willing to use either persuasion or force. In other words, an ethics
of Virtue sits uncomfortly side by side with an ethic of Virtu in Bacon’s
moral writings. Further, this Machiavellian ethic is too closely tied to
a necessitarian world to sit comfortably with a doctrine of free-will
and an explicit Christian doctrine of the love of God and Neighbor.
And the invocation of the name “Machiavelli” is no accident. Any
careful reading of The Prince will have to acknowledge that the great
Italian student of politics draws heavily on the textbook for Princes,
the Secretum secretorum, whose first Editor in the Latin West was Roger
Bacon.11
In conclusion, one should note that throughout the Opus maius and
in the Moralis phibsophia in particular Bacon relates language and
physics to morals in a teleological manner. And in all of the work he
presents his synthesis of Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic teaching. It
is not that of Thomas Aquinas or Bonaventure nor is it that of the
young Arts Masters at the University of Paris, but it is closely related
to their concerns and must be understood in that context. And in its
emphasis on Platonic and Stoic themes, it shows that the latter tra­
ditions were not forgotten in the philosophy of the 13th century.
11 Jeremiah Hackett, “Machiavellianism before Machiavelli,” paper, University of
South Carolina, Renaissance Colloquium, 1994.
INDICES
 INDEX MANUSCRIPTORUM

Amiens, Bibl. Mun. 406: 21, 105

Barcelona, Archivo di Corona de
Aragon, Ripoll 109: 69, 134
Cambridge, Univ. Lib. Ii III.3, 185n,
189
Erfurt,
London, British Library, Sloane
2156: 152
Manchester, John Rylands Library,
Lat. 65: 319n
Bibl. Amplon. F 135: 105
Bibl. Amplon. Q, 328: 104
Oxford, Bodleian Library,
Digby 55: 100
Digby 67: 105
Digby 76: 152
Digby 204: 104, 109
Corpus Christi Coll. 41: 162n
Laud. Misc. d. 37: 153n
Tanner 116: 366n, 382
Paris,
Bibliotheque de l’Arsenal, 2344: 328n
3009: 328n
Bibhotheque National: 16198: 207n
Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana,
Vat. Lat. 2227: 153n
Vat. Lat. 5004: 153n
Vat. Reg. Lat. 1317: 317n, 321n,
322n, 328
Vat. Urb. Lat. 186: 298n

INDEX NOM INUM (I)
(Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern)
Abelard: 95, 95n
Abishag: 353n
Abraham: 154, 193n, 377n
Abugafarus: 46n
Abu J a ’far Ahmad ibn Yusuf (See
Pseudo-Hali and Pseudo-Ptolemy)
Abu Ma'shar (Albumazar): be, 30, 32,
38, 44, 47, 142, 175n, 185, 188,
188n, 192-7, 288-89, 293, 371, 408
Adam: 80, 155, 184, 347-48, 386
Adam of Buckfield: 396
Adelard of Bath: 38, 44, 155, 155n,
156, 158, 168n, 169, 172, 174, 177,
177n, 213, 261
Aethicus Ister (Ethicus): 200
Al-Battani (Al-bategni): 38n, 175, 216
Al-Betrugi: 285
Al-Farabi: 56, 79, 79n, 80n, 101,
lOln, 135, 136n, 137, 140, 140n,
141, 141n, 142, 145, 147, 156, 164,
194, 227n, 228, 341, 408
Al-Fraganus: 175n, 201, 207
Al-Ghazalf (Algazel): 80n, lOln, 129,
135, 136n, 140, 145, 284n
Al-Khwarazmi: 209, 216, 261
Al-Kindl: 59, 78, 216, 243-46,
261-62, 268, 273-74, 285n, 290n,
353, 371
Al-Majusi (see Haly Abbas): 285, 341,
347, 358
Al-Razi (see Pseudo-Razi)
Alanus de Insulis: 32, 46n, 136, 136n
Alberti: 305
Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great):
12, 13, 30n, 36, 38, 40, 40n, 41,
41n, 45, 46, 47, 49, 51, 52, 80n,
141, 170, 170n, 173, 175n, 176,
179n, 184, 187, 187n, 188n, 189n,
190n, 195, 202, 210-11, 213, 220,
220n, 222, 281, 293n, 295n, 302-3,
315, 332-35, 357n, 362, 374, 374n,
376n, 377, 390, 398
Alcabitius: 30, 47
Alexander Nequam (Neckham): 213,
214, 341, 34In, 362
Alexander of Aphrodisias: 297, 297n
Alexander of Hales: 16, 27, 27n, 28,
32, 35, 49, 51, 52, 52n
Alexander of Tralles: 339n
Alexander the Great: 155, 308, 310,
342-43, 351, 355, 365, 379, 379n,
383, 387-89
Alfonso X (See King Alfonso X)
Alfred of Sareshel (Alvredus Anglicus):
44n, 84n, 213
Alhacen; Al-Hasan; Al-Hazen (See Ibn
al-Haytham)
Alphonse of Poitiers: 386
Alphonsine (Tables): 209
Alvredus Anglicus (See Alfred of
Sareshel)
Ammonius: 127n
Anaritius (al-Nayrizi): 156
Anonymous (Dist. Par. “Not.”): 105n
Appolonius: 156
Aquila: 50n
Aquinas, Thomas: 18n, 22n, 46,
118n, 127n, 137, 137n, 141, 176,
179n, 183n, 187, 187n, 188n, 189n,
191-93, 195, 195n, 196, 196n, 197,
297, 297n, 309, 396, 398, 400, 409
Archimides: 156, 156n, 172
Archytas: 155
Aristotle: 14, 25, 26, 28, 28n, 31, 32,
33, 36, 38, 39, 39n, 43, 43n, 45,
45n, 46, 47, 50n, 55n, 57, 58, 59,
60, 60n, 61, 69, 81, 83, 84n, 89,
90, 90n, 91, 92, 96, 99, 99n, 101,
lOln, 102, 105, 111-113, 118, 125,
127, 128, 131, 134, 134n, 135,
136n, 137, 137n, 138, 138n, 139,
140, 140n, 144, 144n, 147, 147n,
148, 148n, 149, 153-56, 163-65,
169, 170, 173, 175n, 176, 176n,
178, 181n, 184, 185, 188, 193-4,
200, 205-6, 213, 224-5, 228-9,
234, 236-7, 244, 261-62, 268, 279,
282-86, 288, 290-92, 294n, 295n,
297, 297n, 298, 298n, 299, 302,
302n, 304, 308, 311, 31 In, 318n,
319n, 323, 323n, 326n, 342-43,
345, 350, 350n, 353, 353n, 354-55,
INDEX NOMINUM (I)
362, 365, 368, 370, 373-74, 376,
376n, 377-80, 382-90, 403, 407-08
Amald of Villanova: 334, 345n, 358n,
363
Artemidorus: 302
Artephius: 377n, 328, 328n, 370
Arzachel: 175n
Augustine: 81, 89, 91, 92, 94, 95n,
98n, 101, lOln, 117, 124, 124n,
125, 126, 139, 139n, 140n, 14 In,
142, 143n, 144, 144n, 145n, 147,
176, 176n, 178n, 179-80, 182-83,
191-92, 196, 203, 223-31, 233-38,
261-62, 293, 294n, 346, 347n,
349n, 350n, 371, 391, 408
Averroes (Ibn Roschd): 18, 30, 42, 47,
55n, 60, 60n, 70, 70n, 96, 101,
lOln, 111, 135, 136n, 140, 140n,
141, 141n, 142, 145, 193, 228, 244,
264, 288, 298, 298n, 326n, 377n,
378n
Avicebron (Solomon Ibn Gebirol):
244-45
Avicenna (Ibn Sina): 7, 18, 32, 44, 47,
60, 72, 78, 80n, 82, lOln, 111, 129,
135, 136, 136n, 140, 145,146n,
154, 170, 175n, 181n, 185, 188,
188n, 190, 193, 196-7, 201, 244,
256, 264, 294n, 298, 298n, 304-5,
318n, 320-22, 329, 335-36, 342,
342n, 347, 350-51, 357n, 358, 371,
385, 386, 407
Bacon, Francis (Baron Verulam): 277,
277n, 279, 28In, 309n, 314, 314n,
315, 336, 400
Bacon, Nicholas: 15n
Bacon, Peter: 15n
Bacon, Robert (OP): 104
Bacon, Roger: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, 9-23, 25-47, 49-65, 67-102,
103-132, 133-49, 151-74, 175-98,
199-222, 223-241, 243-275,
277-315, 317-336, 337-364,
365-93, 395-403, 405-409
Bacon, Thomas: 15n
Barbour, John: 357
Bartholomaeus Anglicus: 213, 293n,
341, 341n
Bartholomew of Messina: lOln, 368
Bede (Venerable): 47, 101, 179, 340,
340n, 347n, 363
Bernard of Clairvaux: 343, 343n,
409
415
Bernard of Trier: 334
Biagio Pelacani da Parma: 135n, 408
Boethius: 47, 53n, 54n, 55n, 91-92,
95, 127n, 136, 136n, 155, 155n,
157, 164, 339
Boethius of Dacia (Boece de Dacie):
114, 122n, 155
Bohun, Mary, Countess of Richmond:
354
Bonaventure: 17, 40, 40n, 47, 93, 93n,
94, 141, 176, 187, 187n, 191-94,
197, 294n, 375, 375n, 400, 405,
409
Bonaventure de Iseo: 36, 40n, 41
Bradwardine, Thomas: 157n, 167,
167n, 173-4
Brito, William: 87
Brunetto Latini: 213, 215
Bulaeus (Boulay): 3 In
Bungay, Friar: ix
Burleigh (Walter): 12In, 122n
Caelius Aurelaianus: 339n
Caesarius of Hesterbach: 27n
Caliph Al-Ma5mun: 216
Cassiodorus: 54, 101, 179, 180, 204,
227n, 230-31, 340
Cassius Felix: 339n
Cato: 338-39
Celsus: 339, 339n
Cennini, Cennino: 305
Censorinus: 227n, 233
Chalcidius: 47
Chaldeans: 75
Chanticleer: 354
Chaucer, Geoffrey: 354, 362, 363
Christ (Christus): 141, 143n, 349n,
362, 405
Cicero: 118, 137, 137n, 139, 144,
144n, 145, 146, 147, 192, 408
Claudius: 208
Clavius, Christopher: 170
Cokkys, John (see Johannis de
Gallicantu): 356-57
Columbus, Christopher: 6, 205-7, 220
Constantine the African: 244, 256, 341
Cuthbert: 347n
Da Vinci, Leonardo: 305
Damascene (John): 196
Daniel of Morley: 44, 213
Dante: 82, 86, 213
De C oupon, Robert (Cardinal): 28,
30, 31
 416
De Foulques, Guy le Gros (Cardinal)
= (Pope Clement IV: 1265-69): 17,
21, 41
De Huy, Gerard: 81-82, 90
De Longchamp, Raoul: 46n
De Lounoy: 3 In
De Montfort, Aumury: 157, 162
De Nemore, Jordanus: 60n
De Novara, Master Campanus: 157
De Penafort, Raymond: 76
De Plano Caprini, John: 201
De Romans, Humbert: 76
De Vitry, Jacques (Bishop of Acre):
214, 219
Dee, John: 218, 314, 314n, 328n,
366n
Descartes, Rene: 20n, 298, 301,
314-15, 315n
Digges, Leonard: 218
Dioscorides: 339n, 340
Dominus Castri Gret or Goet: 366n
Duns Scotus, John: 104, 281, 402
Durandus de St Porsain: 120n
Eden, Richard: 218
Emperor Frederick II: 33, 33n, 34, 34n
Emperor Manfred: 33
Esdras: 205
Ethicus (Aethicus Ister): 200
Euclid: 55n, 155, 155n, 156, 156n,
158, 160, 163-6, 168-70, 172, 174,
243, 261-62, 266, 268, 273-74, 284,
291
Eudoxus of Cnidus: 160, 160n, 166,
166n, 173
Eusebius: 219
Ferdinand (King): 206
Fibonacci, Leonardo: 214—15
Ficino, Marsilio: 305, 397
Fishacre, Richard: 93, 93n, 97
Fra Paolino Veneto: 219
Galen: 244, 261, 320n, 326n, 340,
340n, 342, 358
Galileo: 151, 371n, 391n
Geminus: 175n, 190, 207n, 307-8
Gerard de Huy: 81-82, 90
Gerard of Abbeville: 16, 19n
Gerard of Cremona: 38, 45-46, 46n,
84n, 156, 161, 313n
Gerber (See Pseudo-Gerber)
Gilbert, William: 314, 314n
Gilbertus Anglicus: 342n, 343n, 359n,
360n, 362
INDICES
Giles of Rome (Aegidius Romanus):
78n, 82n, 134, 147n, 148, 148n,
191, 197, 374n, 375
Giotto: 305-6, 396
Gratian: 141, 141n, 142n, 177
Grosseteste, Robert (Bishop of Lincoln;
Lincolniensis): 10, 11, 12, 13,
15, 16, 38, 39, 39n, 40, 44, 49,
55, 64, 65, 75, 87, 100, lOOn, 134,
138, 138n, 141, 158, 162, 167,
167n, 173, 178, 178n, 181n, 182,
183n, 188n, 193-4, 197, 197n,
213, 223-25, 232n, 236n, 238n,
243-46, 262, 265n, 274, 281-90,
293n, 294n, 298n, 300, 300n, 304,
306, 31 On, 345, 345n, 350n, 375n,
376, 376n, 402
Guibert of Toumai: 390, 407n
Gundisallinus (Gundisalvi): 32, 56, 80n,
lOln, 137
Haly Abbas (see Al-Majusi): 285, 341,
350 350n
Haly al-Imrani: 47
Hearn, Thomas, 355n
Henri d’Andeli: 46n
Henricus Aristippus: 45
Henry of Ghent (Henri de Gand): 98,
98n, 104, 117, 124, 124n, 191, 396,
402
Hermann of Carinthia: 32, 33, 38, 38n
Hermannus Alemannus: 4, 12, 38,
84n, lOln, 135, 136n, 138, 138n,
140n, 148
Hermes: 184
Hermes Trismegistus: 337
Hermogenes: 374
Hervaeus Sophista: 105
Heylyn, Peter: 203n
Hilgart von Humheim: 393
Hippocrates: 340, 342, 352n, 363
Hobbes, Thomas: 148n
Hoccleve, Thomas: 354, 355n
Horace: 136n, 139, 145, 148
Hugh of Sanctalla: 46n
Hugh of St Cher (Cardinal): 391
Hugh of St Victor: 54n, 343, 343n, 371
Hugutio: 86
Humboldt: 206
Humphrey (Humfrey), Duke of
Gloucester: 355, 355n
Hunayn ibn Ishaq: 256, 261, 357
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen): 20n, 60,
62, 156, 170-71, 244, 244n, 251,
INDEX NOMINUM (I)
256, 258, 261, 264-66, 268, 271,
27In, 273, 284-86, 288-90, 293,
294n, 304, 309n, 313
Ibn al-Jazzar: 341
Ibn Q urrah (See Thabit ibn Qurrah)
Isaac: 45
Isabella (Queen): 206
Isabella of France: 354
Isidore: 100, 212, 339n, 349
Isidore of Seville: 54, 88, 179, 179n,
201, 204, 231, 340, 354, 354n
Jacopo de’ Barbari: 219n
Jacqueline of Hainaut: 355
James of Venice: 55n
Jebb, Samuel: 44, 223, 223n
Jerome: 89, 89n, 200-1, 204, 230-31,
399
Jerome of Ascoli: 19, 19n
Jesus: 367n
Joachim: 50n
Iohannes (Bacon’s pupil): 312, 312n
Johannis de Gallicantu: 357
Johannitius (See Hunayn)
John Dastin: 334
John of Basingstoke: 87
John of Garland: 33n, 35n, 36, 407n
John of Paris: 194, 408
John of Rupella: 16
John of Rupescissa (Jean de
Roquetaillade): 334, 334n, 335-36
John of Salisbury: 337, 343-44, 344n
John of Seville: 30, 32, 38, 365
John of Tinemue (Johannes de
Tinemue): 156, 158
John Trevisa: 341, 363
John of Tynemouth (See Master John
of London): 158n, 162n, 173
John of Wales: 390, 407n
Jordanus (de Nemore): 157, 161n, 172
Josaphat: 204
Josephus: 154—55, 230, 370, 370n
Kant, I.: 29In
Kepler, Johannes: 20n, 59, 265, 274,
290n
Kilwardby, Robert: 4, 56, 57, 62, 63,
65, 68-70, 69n, 73, 91, 92, 94, 96,
103, 103n, 110, 113, 113n, 133n,
183, 183n, 234n, 237, 397
King Alfonso X of Castille: 209
King Charles: 84n
King David: 353n
King Edward I: 380
King Henry III: 214, 380
417
King Henry IV: 354
King Henry V: 355
King Henry VI: 356
King James I: 240
King Louis IX: 201, 387
King Richard II: 354
Kymer, Gilbert: 355, 355n, 356, 356n
Lambert of Auxerre (de Lagny): 114n,
399
Leibniz: 151
Leonardo Pisano (Fibonacci): 214
Lull, Raymond (See Raymond Lull;
Ramon Lull)
Lydgate, John: 355, 355n, 362
Machiavelli: 409
Macrobius: 47, 339
Manfred (Translator): 84n
Marbode: 371
Marcellus of Bordeaux: 339n
Marco Polo: 207
Marsh, Robert: 12, 49,
Marsh, Adam: 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 49,
50n, 134, 141, 158, 162
Martianus Capella: 47, 339
Masha’allah (Massahalla): 30, 175,
188
Master Campanus of Novara
(Compana da Novara): 157, 160-1,
166n, 167, 168n, 172-4, 175n, 214
Master John Bandoun: 158
Master John of London: 157-9
Master Nicholas: 157, 162
Master Peter of Maricourt (see Petrus
Peregrinus de Maharii curia): 157-9
Matthew of Orleans: 105
Matthew Paris: 13, 13n, 214, 238
Maurolico: 20n, 274
Meinong, Alexius: 400
Melton, Geoffrey: 354
Merlin: 50n
Moerbecke, William of: 4
Moses: 50n
Newton, Isaac: 167n, 174, 298, 301
Nicholas Graecus (See Master Nicholas):
162
Nicholas of Cornwall: 122n
Nicholas of Cusa: 309n
Nicholas of Damascus (Nicole de
Damas): 111
Nicholas of Paris: 104n
Noah: 154, 219
Norton, Thomas: 356, 356n, 363
 418 INDICES
Ockham (See William of Ockham)
Oresme, Nicholas: 167, 167n, 174
Oribasius: 339n
Origen: 231, 23In
Orosius: 201, 204
Ovid: 145
Papias: 86
Paris, Matthew: 87
Pecham, John: 6, 20n, 192, 194, 194n,
274, 243-75, 375
Pertelote: 354
Peter Camestor: 52, 177
Peter Helias (Petrus Helias): 96n
Peter Lombard: 52, 93, 94, 177
Peter of Blois: 343, 343n
Peter of Candia: 388n
Peter of Cornwall: 122n, 123n
Peter of Ireland (Pierre d ’Hibemie): 127n
Peter of Limoges: 180
Peter of Spain; Petrus Hispanus (Pope
John XXI): 14, 110, 11 On, 281
Peter John Olivi (Pierre Jean Olieu):
98, 98n, 104, 402
Petrarch: 349
Petrus Auerol (Peter Aureol): 302n
Petrus Heliae: 96n
Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt (Master
Peter of Maricourt): 157-9, 309n,
31 On, 311, 31 In, 311-13, 314n,
315n, 371
Philip the Chancellor: 4 In, 366
Philip of Greve: 35
Philip of Tripoli: 7, 365, 375, 388n
Philo of Byzantium: 156
Pierre d’Ailly (Cardinal Petrus
Alliacus): 206, 217-18
Pierre d ’Hibemie (see Peter of Ireland)
Plato: 127n, 130, 176, 178, 243, 261,
291n
Plato of Trivoli: 38, 38n
Pliny: 47, 200, 208, 272, 285, 337-40,
342, 342n, 347, 349, 35In, 352n,
358, 358n, 359n, 361-62, 370
Plotinus: 245, 274
Pope Boniface VIII: 348n, 401
Pope Celestine V: 400-01
Pope Clement IV (See also De
Foulques, Guy-Card.): 17, 19, 21,
42, 45, 46, 177, 199, 218, 372,
375n, 405
Pope Gregory IV: 33
Pope Gregory IX: 33, 34, 35, 36, 36n
INDEX NOMINUM (I) 419
Pope Gregory X: 41n Roebruck, William (See William of Theodoric of Freiberg: 298, 300
Pope Innocent IV: 33, 34, 35, 36, 36n Roebruck) Theodosius: 156
Pope John XXI (see Peter of Spain) Roger of Herford: 44 Thomas of Wales: 12, 49
Pope Nicholas III: 19n Tideus: 261-62, 274
Porphyry: 120, 210 Sacrobosco: 213, 299 Toscanelli: 206
Possidonius: 302 Sallust: 200
Priscian: 68, 86, 87, 99, 116 Scot, Michael: 28, 28n, 33, 34, 36, 84n Van Helmont: 346n
Proclus: 164-5 Scotus (See Duns Scotus, John) Varro: 339n
Pseudo-Aristode (De mundo): 162 Seneca: 7, 47, 139, 205, 285, 297, Vincent of Beauvais: 201
Pseudo-Aristode (De veg.): 43 302, 302n, 303n, 406-09 Vitruvius: 156
Pseudo-Aristode (Sec. sec.): 44, 285, 308, Sennert: 346n
329-31, 361, 363, 365-393, 403 Seth: 154 Wallis, John: 151
Pseudo-Avicenna: (De anima): 321—22, Sextus Empiricus: 126n William Bonecour: 17
324, 330, 330n, 331-32 Sibyl: 50n William Brito: 31
Pseudo-Dionysius: 147, 244 Siger of Brabant (Siger de Brabant): William of Auvergne: 15, 32, 36, 281,
Pseudo-Euclid: 274 114, 114n, 141, 297, 297n, 377n 366
Pseudo-Gerber: 317n, 332, 332n, Siger of Courtrai: 70n William of Auxerre: 35
333-36 Silvestri, Ser Dominico: 349n William of Beauvais: 35
Pseudo-Ovid (De vet.): 44, 193-4 Simon de Montfort: 17 William of Conches: 86, 261
Pseudo-Ptolemy (Centiloquium): see next Simon of Authie (de Aletis): 35 William Lupus: 12, 49
entry Simon of Faversham: 123n William of Moerbecke: 38, 10In,
Pseudo-Ptolemy (De disp. Sph.): 193, Simon of St Quentin: 201 137, 137n, 149, 297, 297n, 313,
205, 285, 285n, 288, 292-3, 307 Simplicius: 118n, 156 391
Pseudo-Ptolemy (=Pseudo-Hali) Socrates: 130 William of Ockham: 23, 12In, 28In,
-A b u J a ’far Ahmad ibn Yusuf Solinus: 370 302n, 396, 402
(Comm, on Centiloquium): ix, 42, 44, Solomon: 154, 184, 184n William of Rubruck (Roebruck): 201-2
46, 47, 175n, 185, 185n, 188-89, Spinoza: 298 William of Sherwood (Guillaume de
190, 196-7, 284, 288, 292-3, 293n Stephen of Provins: 35, 36 Sherwood): 12, 49, 81, 104, 110,
Pseudo-Razi (Al-Razi): 319, 319n, 322, Suhr-ab: 216 1lOn, 113, 113n, 116n, 141
322n, 323, 332, 336, 347 Witelo: 6, 20n, 274, 290, 309n
Ptolemy: 55n, 60, 156, 175n, 179, Tempier, Etienne, (Bishop of Paris): Wyke, John: 354
185, 188-90, 196-7, 199, 200, 43, 46, 197n, 373
205-7, 209, 215-17, 220, 231, 243, Thabit ben Qurra: 161, 161n, 172, 216 Zael (Sahl ben Bishar): 30
261-63, 266, 268, 273-74, 278, Themestius: 389 Zarkala: 209
284—5, 288-89, 293, 370
Pythagoras: 155
Queen Ethelthryth: 34 7n
Radulphus Brito: 123
Raymond Lull (Ramon Lull): 77, 214
Raymond of Laon: 17
Richard Fishacre: 93, 93n, 97
Richard of Clive: 123n
Richard of Foumival: 16, 44, 315
Richard of St Victor: 177
Richard Rufus of Cornwall: 15n, 49,
121, 121n, 123, 141, 191
Rigord: 27n, 31
Risner, Fredrich: 27In, 273
Robert of Chester: 38, 44, 156, 156n,
172
Robert Greene: 1

INDEX NOMINUM (II)
(Modem)
Ableson, Paul, 339n
Agrimi, Jole, 349n, 361, 396
Al-Amrani, D., 90n
Al-Hassan, Ahmad Y., 185n
Alessio, F., 3, 8, 20, 366n, 367n, 395,
396
Alford, John A., 354n
Allard, Guy-H., 317n, 335
Alonso Alonso, Manuel, 80n
Anawati, Georges C., 335, 396
Ancona, Christina D ’, 396
Andujar, Eduardo, 137n
Annas, Julia, 285n
Arbesman, Ralph, 349n
Ashton, T.H., 20n, 345n, 362, 399
Ashworth, E. Jennifer, 118, 396
Asia Moreu, Diego, 396
Aujac, Germaine, 285n
Asztlos, M., 106n
Bacon, Francis, 277, 279, 315
Baeumker, C., 79n, 245n
Baird, Professor Davis Whitney, x
Barbour, John, 357
Barnes, Jonathan, 237
Barocelh, Francesco, 408
Baur, Ludwig, 1, 225n, 245n
Bazan, B. Carlos, 114, 137n
Beaujean, Guy, 37In
Beckman, J.P., 102n
Bell, Rudolph, 348n
Benjamin, F.S., 160n, 172
Benson, Robert G., 376n
Bergdolt, Klaus, 306n, 31 On, 396
Berger, S., 88n
Berube, Camille, 375n
Bethel, Dennis, ix
Bettoni, E., 3, 20
Biard, Joel, 397
Bieler, Professor (Ludwig), ix
Bigali, Davide, 50n
Bignami-Odier, 335
Bishoff, B., 82n
Bjombo, A.A., 161, 172, 274
Black, D.L., 134n
Bloch, H., 340n
Bogges, Wilham F., 136
Borgnet, Auguste, 333
Bos, E.P., 113n, 397
Bottin, Francesco, 375n, 395, 397
Bourgain, P., 8 In, 397
Bourke, Vernon J., 195n
Bouyges, Maurice, 382n
Boyer, Charles B., 283n, 300, 300n
Braakhuis, H.A.G., 104, 104n, 113n,
397
Bradwardine, Thomas, 167
Brams, J., 297n
Braun, Klaus, 298n
Brehm, Edmund, 317n, 336
Brewer, J.S., passim, 1, 37, 52n, 199n,
215n, 223, 238, 266n, 335, 368n,
369n, 370n, 375n, 376n, 378, 379n,
380n, 388n, 389n, 390n
Bridges, John H., passim (see Opus
maius)
Brind’Amour, L., 11On
Brown, E.A.R., 397
Bruni, G., 148
Brunning, B., OSA, 176n, 19In
Brunschwig, Jacques, 285n
Bullough, Vem L., 355n
Burger, H., 16In
Buridant, C., 402
Burke, Robert Belle, 225n, 227n,
238n
Burnett, Charles B., 20n, 177n
Bums, Chester R., 343n
Bursill-Hall, G.L., 399
Busard, H.L.L., 156n, 161, 16In,
162n, 172-3, 395
Bylebyl, Jerom e L., 338n, 362
Bynum, Caroline Walker, 348n, 362
Cameron, M.L., 339n, 362
Campbell, Sheila, 317n, 336, 338n,
340, 362
Campbell, Tony, 206n, 214n, 221
Cantor, Geoffrey, 274
Capezzali, W., 401
Carmody, F J., 161, 161n, 172
Carrier, Joanne, 69n
INDEX NOMINUM (II)
Carton, Roul, 2, 280, 280n, 282, 284
Castelli, Patrizia, 135n
Catto, J.I., 134n, 345n, 362, 399
Charles, Emile, 1
Chatelain, A., 29, 372
Chibnall, Maijorie, 338n, 362
Clagett, Marshall, 2, 156n, 157n, 172,
274
Clark, John R., 397
Clarke, M.L., 339n
Clementi, A., 400
Colish, Marcia, 19In
Colnort-Boldet, Suzanne, 397
Contamine, Genevieve, 397
Conti, A., 9 In
Copenhaver, Brian B., 374n
Cortesao, Armando, 202n, 218n, 220,
220n, 221
Corwin, Elna, x
Courtenay, Wilham J., 135n
Cousin, Victor, 1
Cousins, Ewart C., 294n
Coxe, H.O., 162n
Cracken, Henry Noble, 355n
Crisciani, Chiara, 339n, 349n, 362, 397
Crivelli, Danielle, 407
Crombie, A.C., vi, ix, 2, 173, 274,
265n, 282, 282n, 283, 290, 290n,
298n, 371n, 391n
Crowley, Theodore, 3, 9, 9n, 10, 14,
19, 182n, 187, 187n, 326n, 366n,
376n
Curry, Patrick, 135n
D ’Alvemy, M.T., 78n, 245n
Da Vinci, Leonardo, 305
Dahan, G., 77n, 90n, 145n, 397
Daiber, H., 134n
Dales, Richard C., 18n, 178n, 192n,
232n, 376n
Daniel, E. Randolph, 76n
Danon-Boileau, L., 107n
Darrell Jackson, B., 92n
Davis, H.W.C., 386n
Dawson, Christopher, 37In
Dawtry, Anne, 340n
De La Mare, A.C., 355n
De Libera, Alain, 5, 9 In, 103-32,
106n, 107n, 108n, 113n, 114n,
120n, 123n, 399-401, 441
De Lubac, H., 146n
De Muralt, Andre, 302n
De Rijk, L.M., 95n, 105n, 106, llOn,
112n
421
De Stefano, Antonio, 33n-34n
De Wulf, Maurice, 37In
Delorme, Ferdinand M. OFM, 2, 19,
98n, 226n, 380n
Demaitre, L., 397
Denifle, H., 29n, 372n
Dod, Bernard G., 292n
Dorey, T.A., 338n
Druart, Therese-Anne, 285n
Duhem, Pierre, 2, 20, 199, 280, 280n,
282, 283, 299n, 367n, 368n, 370n,
376n, 380n, 383n, 388n, 389n, 390n
Duncan, Edgar H., 356n, 362
Durand, Dana Bennett, 221
Durant, 33n
Duval, Yves-Marie, 399
Eamon, William, 3, 366n, 37In
Easton, Stewart C., 3, 20, 159, 159n,
162n, 172, 282, 282n, 366n, 368n,
369, 369n, 370n, 379n, 383n
Eastwood, Bmce C., 288, 288n
Ebbesen, S., 104n, 122n, 238n, 397,
401
Eco, Umberto, 93n, 397
Edwards, Paul, 238n
Elhs, 277n
Emden, A.B., 15n
Enghsh, Edward D., 187n, 302n,
376n
Evans, T.A.R., 20n, 345n, 362, 399
Fattori, J.M ., 297n
Federici-Vescovini, G., 135n, 294n,
408
Feirulo, Stephen C., 343n, 362
Fichtner, Gerhard, 349n, 362
Finan, Thomas, 176n
Fisher, N.W., 59, 173, 274, 283n
Flasch, Kurt, 374n
Folkerts, M., 156n, 172-3, 396
Forster, Max, 355n, 362
Frankowska, Malgorzata, 283n, 367n
Fredborg, K.M., 3, 85n, 86n, 103n,
117
Freeland, Cynthia, 285n
French, Roger, 342n, 362
Friedman, Michael, 29In
Furley, David J., 134
Furnivall, Fredrick J., 355n
Gahonier, A., 90n
Gasquet, F.A. (Cardinal), 19, 50, 53n,
60n, 200n, 379n, 380n, 389n
 422
Geohegan, D., 356n, 362
Gerson, Lloyd P., 285n
Getz, Faye, 6, 6 In, 317n, 336-64,
338n, 34In, 354n, 355n, 356n,
357n, 362, 397, 441
Geyer, B., 95n
Gibbs, Hamilton, 393
Gibson, Margaret, 34In, 362
Gieben, Servus, OFM. cap., 232n,
376n, 402
Glacken, Clarence J., 202n, 211, 21 In,
222
Goering, J., 92n
Gonzalez Palencia, A., 80n
Grabmann, M., 3 In, 35n
Gracia, Diego, 342n, 353n, 354n, 362
Gracia, J.E., 398
Grant, Edward, 2, 245n, 246n, 274,
312n, 400
Grignaschi, Mario, 140n, 388n, 392
Hackett, Jeremiah, 1-9, 49-66,
133-50; 175-98, 277-315, 405-9,
14n, 16n, 18n, 22n, 4 In, 42n, 64n,
67n, 102n, 137n, 140n, 141n, 192n,
193n, 194n, 197n, 266n, 274, 288n,
290n, 315n, 366n, 375n, 376n,
377n, 395n, 398, 407n, 409n, 441
Hackett, Margaret T.R., vi
Hackett, Thomas J.R ., vi
Hadrianus a Krizovljan, P., 377n
Hall, Bert, 338n, 340
Halleux, Robert, 333n, 334n, 336
Hamesse, Jacqueline, 164n, 173, 297n
Hammond, E.A., 357n
Harley, J.B., 214n, 216n, 221-2
Harvey, Paul D.A., 21 On, 222
Haug, Walter, 180
Hearn, Thomas, 355n
Heath, 277n
Heath, T.L., 172
Heidegger, Martin, 278n
Helmholtz, 305
Hermenau, Willy, 39In, 392
Herren, M.W., 87n
Hime, H.W.L., 317n, 336
Hirsch, S.A., 8 In, 87n, 88n, 344n
Hoeniger, F. David, 338n
Hogendijk, J.P., 173, 396
Hofifeld, Paul, 302n, 303n
Hovdhaugen, E., 85, 398
Howe, Herbert M., 6, 18In, 199-222,
441
Huber-Legnani, M., 398
Hudry, F., 78n, 245n
INDICES
Hudson, Robert P., 359n
Hughes, Barnabas, 398
Huillard-Breholles, 33n
Humphreys, K.W., 372n
Hunt, R.W., 341n, 362
Hyman, Professor A., x
Jacquart, Danielle, 340n
James, M.R., 158, 159, 173
Janni, Pietro, 396
Jebb, Samuel, 223, 223n
Joerg, W.L.G., 209n
Jolivet, J., 123, 400
Jones, Charles W., 340n
Jones, W.H.S., 338n, 362
Jourdain, Charles, 10, lOn, 398
Judy, Albert G. O.P., 183n
Kaluza, Z., 123, 400
Karmi, Ghada, 185
Kay, Sarah, 343n
Kenny, Anthony, 224n
Kibre, Pearl, 285n, 335, 343n, 349n,
357n, 362
Kieckhofer, Richard, 295n
Kimble, George H.T., 202, 202n, 222
King, J.E., 347n, 363
Klausner, David, 338n, 340
Kneepkens, C.H., 68n
Knorr, Wilbur, 158, 158n, 162n, 173
Knuttila, Simo, 401
Koch, Joseph, 78n, 374n
Kohl, K., 161n
Koemer, K., 114n, 399
Kraml, Hans, 399
Kretzmann, N., 104, 104n, 107n, 224n
Kristeller, Professor Paul Oscar, ix,
134
Kuhnert, Friedmar, 339n, 363
Kunze, P., 11 On
Kupfer, Joseph, 277n
Lafleur, C., 69n, 70n, 79n, 111
Laird, W.R., 286n
Lamb, George, 339n
Lamberigts, M., 176n
Lambertini, R., 397
Langhade, J., 140n
Lardet, P., 89n, 399
Lawn, Brian, 339n
Leibnitz, 155
Lejeune, Albert, 274
Lemay, Richard, ix, 4, 25-48, 32n,
185n, 192n, 289n, 441
Leonardi, Claudio, 402
INDEX NOMINUM (II) 423
Mazzini, Innocenzo, 396
Letora Mendoza, Cehna A., 399
McCracken, Henry Noble, 355n
Lewry, P.O., 103n, 113n, 122n, 134n,
McEvoy, James, 138n, 288n, 31 On,
399
358n, 37In
Liebermann, F., 173
McVaugh, Michael R., 358n, 359n,
Liebeschutz, Hans, 344n
345n, 363
Lindberg, David C., ix, 2, 3, 6, 9, 9n,
Meggle, Georg, 399
10, 13, 13n, 54n, 59, 59n, 173,
Meier, Annalise, 2
243-76, 244n, 245n, 247n, 248n,
250n, 252n, 267n, 269n, 283n, Mendelsohn, E., 167
Menjot, D., 400
290n, 300, 300n, 314n, 315n, 319,
339n, 359n, 363, 395, 400, 441 Mensching, Gunther, 401
Migne, J.P., 227n
Linden, Stanton J., 3, 317n, 336, 395,
Miller, D.C., M.F.A., x, 67n
400
Minio-Paluello, L., lOOn, 292n
Link-Salinger, Ruth, 140n, 398n
Mobeley, Berry, x
Little, A.G., ix, 2, 6, 10, lOn, 19, 20,
Mojsisch, B., 107n
37, 199, 199n, 200, 200n, 222,
Molland, George, 5, 22, 77n, 151-74,
299n, 33In, 344n, 345n, 347n,
349n, 357n-60n, 363, 366n-7n, 156n, 157n, 159n, 160n, 165n,
166n, 167n, 169n, 170n, 17 In,
368n, 370n, 380n, 388n, 389n,
390n, 39In, 395 317n, 322n, 325n, 337n, 363, 375,
Livesey, S.J., 173 375n, 376n, 379n, 395, 401, 441
Lloyd, G.E.R., 176n, 278, 278n, 310n, Moller, Reinhold, 39In, 393
339n, 340n, 342n, 363 Moreton, Jennifer, 18In, 288n
Muller, Paola, 401
Lohr, C.H., 80n, 11 On
Mundy, John H., 49, 50, 50n
Long, R. James, 193n
Murdoch, John E., 2, 166n, 168,
Lonie, I.M., 342n
168n, 173, 274, 400
Lorcin, Marie-Therese, 400
Murphy, James J., 134n, 137n, 148n
Lovitt, William, 278n
Murray, Alexander, 37In, 375n
Lusignan, S., 82n, 83n, 85n
Mussler, B., 11 On
MacDonald, Michael-Albion, 400 Mynors, R.A.B., 340
Macray, G.D., 81n
Maddicot, John, 17n Namnum, Nizar, 185n
Makdisi, G., 377n, 393 Nascimento, Carlos Arthur Ribeiro do,
401
Maloney, Thomas S., 3, 7, 10, lOn,
13, 13n, 93n, 11 On, 119n, 122n, Neibyl, Peter H., 346n
139n, 395-404, 395n, 441 Nehemias, Alexander, 134n
Newhauser, Richard, 180n
Manget, J J ., 328n
Newman, William, 7, 317-36, 317n,
Manselh, R., 400
328n, 332n, 334n, 335n, 336, 366n,
Maranesi, Pietro, 400
367n, 37In, 401, 441
Mariani, A., 401
Manzalaoui, M., 342n, 355n, 363, 380n, Nielsen, L., 3, 103n
Nolan, E., 8 In
382n, 383n, 388n, 392-3, 395-403
Marcos Casquero, Manuel A., 354n Nordenskiold, Adolf Eric, 214, 214n,
222
Marietti, 85n
North, John, 9, 20, 20n, 175n
Marmo, C., 93n, 104n, 397, 401
Nuchelmans, G., 96
Marrone, Steven P., 288n
Nutton, Vivian, 354n
Marrou, H.I., 339n, 363
Marshall, William, x
O ’Donnell, J.R ., 147n
Martene, 33n
O ’Loughlin, Thomas, 176n, 178n,
Martin, J., 92n
Martin OSA, Professor F.X., ix 181n, 188n, 191n
O ’Meara, Professor (John J.), ix
Martinelli, Bortolo, 349
Oates, Whitney J., 346n, 347n, 350n
Massa, E., passim, 3, 77n, 10In, 138n,
Olshki, Leo S., 286n
139n, 143n, 405
424 INDICES
Orlandi, Giovanni, 402
Oroz Reta, Jose, 354n
Owens, Joseph, CSSR, 285n
Paravicini-Bagliani, A., 22, 22n, 317n,
336, 347n, 348n, 363, 366n, 393,
401-2
Parkhurst, Charles, 303, 304, 304n,
305, 305n, 306, 306n, 402
Pattison Muir, M.M., 77n, 317n, 336
Pearsal, Derek, 355n
Pelzer, Auguste, 323, 336
Pereira, Michela, 317n, 345n, 336, 363
Picavet, F., 159n, 173,
Pinborg, Jan, 3, 70n, 103n, 115n,
12In, 122n, 128n, 224n
Pingree, D., 134n, 192n
Poro, P., 402
Porter, Roy, 354n
Powicke, M.R., 148n
Raedts, P., 121
Ragep, F J., 173
Rand, Edward Kennard, 137n
Rashdall, H., 3, 225n
Rather, L J., 343n, 363
Reckow, Fritz, 229n
Reichl, K., 99n
Reidy, J., 356n, 363
Reta, Jose Oroz, 354n
Reynolds, L.D., 338n, 407n
Ricci, Pierre Giorgio, 349n
Richter, Dr. Michael, ix
Ridyard, Susan J., 376n
Risner, Friedrich, 27In, 273
Rivero, M.L., 107
Robins, R.H., 115
Robinson, F.N., 354n, 363
Rorty, Amelie Oxenberg, 134n
Rosen, Edward, 2, 275
Rosier-Catach, Irene, 5, 67-102, 68n,
72n, 77n, 89n, 92n, 96n, 108n, 124,
124n, 133n, 140n, 366n, 397, 402,
441
Rossi, Paolo, 283, 283n
Rossi, Pietro, 55n
Rubin, Miri, 343n
Ruska, Julius, 319n, 32In, 336
Ryan, W.F., 342n, 363, 382n, 393
Sabra, A.I., 289, 289n, 290n, 313n
Saltet, L., 36n
Sandquiat, T.A., 148n
Sandys, John Edwin, 379n
Sarton, George, 282, 282n
Sbrocchi, Leonardo G., 137n
Schlund, E., 312n
Schmitt, Charles B., 342n, 374n, 382n,
393
Schneider, Bemhardus, 136n
Schultz, Juergen, 219n
Scully, Terence, 348n
Sears, Elizabeth, 304n, 403
Selig, Karl-Ludwig, 304n, 402
Serene, E., 287n
Seymour, M.C., 341n, 363
Shahar, Shulamith, 343n, 363
Sharp, D.E., 37In, 383n
Sharpe, William D., 354n
Sheehan, M.M., 397
Shenk, R., 93n
Shirley, John W., 338n, 362
Shorten, William O., ix
Singer, C., 370n
Singer, Dorothea Waley, 317n, 328n,
336, 366
Siraisi, Nancy G., 349n, 363, 339n
Sirridge, M., 69n, 402
Skinner, Quentin, 148n, 374n
Smet, A.J., 297n
Smith, David Eugene, 173, 200, 200n
Smith, A. Mark, 275, 315, 315n
Southern, Sir Richard, 4, lOn, 39n,
224n, 350n, 37In
Speer, Andreas, 401
Spedding, Francis, 277n
Spencer-Amado, Ms. Joan, x
Stabile, G., 402
Stannard, Jerry, 359n, 363
Stapleton, H.E., 336
Steedley Jr., Homer R., x
Steele, Robert, Passim, 1, 2, 3, 19, 20,
37, 105, 160, 173, 335, 342n, 363,
367n, 368, 369n, 370n, 373n, 38In,
391n
Stump, Eleanor, 224n
Sylla, Edith, 2, 167n, 173, 174
Tabarroni, A., 397
Tachau, Katherine M., 302n, 402
Talbot, C.H., 339n, 357n, 363
Taylor, E.G.R., 218n, 221, 22In, 222
Temkin, Owsei, 340n, 364
Thijssen, J.M .M .H., 173, 402
Thompson, David, 349n
Thomson, S.H., 226n
Thorndike, Lynn, 2, 20, 25, 25n, 26,
28, 28n, 29, 29n, 34, 34n, 39, 200,
INDEX NOMINUM (II)
200n, 206n, 215, 215n, 280, 280n,
281, 28In, 282, 285n, 295, 299n,
334, 334n, 335, 349n, 366n
Tibbets, Gerard R., 216n, 222
Tilmann, Sister Jean Paul, 210n, 220n,
222
Tonna, Ivo, 403
Toomer, G.J., 160n, 172
Twomey, Vincent, 176n
Tyorinoja, Reijo, 401
Unguru, Sabetai, 59, 173, 283n, 290n,
308n, 309n, 314n
Upton, Thomas V., 29In
Urban, William, 403
Valente, L., 77n, 397
Van Bavel, T.J., 176n
Van den Eynde, D., 93n
Van Deussen, Nancy, 5, 223-42, 229n,
236n, 441
Van Engen, John, 187n, 302n, 376n
Van Houten, J., 176n
Vance, E., llOn
Vandewalle, Charles B., 81n, 379n
Veneto, Fra Paolino, 219
Vickers, Brian, 328n
Vier, Raimundo, 403
Vignaux, Paul, 123n
Vigueur, J.-C. Marie, 402
Vogl, Sebastian, 1, 274—5
Voigts, Linda E., 34In, 359n
Wachinger, Burchart, 180n
Wallace, Wilham A., 2, 283n, 286n, 298n
Wear A 342
Webb, Clement C.J., 386
425
Webster, Charles, 356n, 364
Wedel, Theodore Otto, 374n
Weinberg, Julius R., 28In
Weisheipl, James A., ix, 2, 13, 14,
14n, 17n, 54n, 55, 55n, 56, 173,
286n, 293n, 345n, 357n, 364
Weiss, R., 82n, 87n
Welborn, Mary Catherine, 344n, 345n,
353n, 364
Wenin, Christian, 287n
Whewell, William, 279, 279n
White, Kevin, 297n
White, Jr., Lynn, 37 In
Wiedemann, Eilhard, 1, 275
Wilkinson, Bertie, 148n
Wilhams, Steven J., 7, 20n, 283n,
365-94, 368n, 372n, 373n, 377n,
380n, 382n, 388n, 403, 441
Wingate, S.D., 25, 25n, 26, 29, 34,
34n, 35, 35n, 36, 39, 40n, 47
Withington, E., 2, 6, 19, 319n, 320n,
325n, 344n, 345n, 347n, 349n,
350n-353n
Wolter, Allan B. OFM, 2 In, 232n
Woodward, David, 6, 18In, 199-222,
214n, 215n, 222, 403, 441
Woodward, Ms. Joanna, x
Wright, John K., 209n, 213, 213n,
216, 217, 217n, 222
Wurms, Friedrich, 38In
Wurschmidt, J., 275
Zambelli, Paola, 184n, 189n, 295n,
374n, 377n
Zienkiewicz, Ziemislaw, 283n
Zimmerman, Albert, 401
Zimmerman, Volker, 339n

INDEX RERUM
Abstractions (Hervaeus Sophista): 105
Agriculture: 61, 345
Albertus Magnus - auctor: 40-1
Alchemy: 62—3; See Roger Bacon -
alchemy
Alexander of Hales (education): 32
Almagest: 32, 200
Antidotarium (Bacon): 357
Antiquities (Josephus): 155
Amaldi de Villanova Aphorismi de gradibus:
358n
Apocrypha: 201
Arab authors: 44
Arab Science: 33
Arabian Astrology: 32, 37, 47
Arin: 209-10
Aristotelianism: 26, 30
Aristotelian Natural Science: 30, 40, 47
Aristotelian Studies: 34
Aristotelian works: 30
Aristode’s Philosophy: 25
Ars poetica (Horace): 145, 148
Artis chemicae princeps...: 32In
Arts Curriculum: 29, 36
Astrological Works: 32; See Roger
Bacon - Astrology-Astronomy
Astrology: 33, 40, 60, 62-5
Astronomy: 60, 62-4
Auctores: 40-41
Averroes’ Commentaries: 30, 32
Bible: 52, 201
Boethian division of the sciences: 53
Book of roots and elements: 165
Cassiodorean division of the sciences:
54
Categories (Aristode): 89
Catoptrica/De visu/De aspectibus (Euclid):
243ff
Celebrated “secular” teacher: 27
Centiloquium (Liber fructus): 42, 45-7,
185, 188-90, 284, 288, 293
Ceylon (Sri Lanka): 208
Chaucer: works-. 354, 354n
Collationes in Hexaemeron (Bonaventure):
375
Commentaire sur les Sophistici Elenchi
(Kilwardby): 110
Commentary on Centiloquium: 42, 45-7,
185, 188-90, 284, 288, 293
Commentary on Ecclesiasticus, ch. 43
(Grosseteste): 31 On
Commentary on Posterior Analytics
(Grosseteste): 283, 285-7
Commentary on the Poetics of Aristotle
(Averroes): 140, 145
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle
(Commentaria in rhetoricam Aristotelis) -
Giles of Rome (Aegidius Romanus),
134, 147-9
Communia mathematical 59, 133, 134n,
135-6, 151-73, 175ff, 292
Compendium medicine (Gilbertus Anglicus):
360n
Communia naturalia: 57-61, 63, 175
Communia naturalium: 53, 58-60, 378
Compendium studii philosophise: 38, 42,
74ff, 168, 368n
Compendium studii theologiae: 51, 80, 97,
103-32, 168, 378n, 388n
Condemnations of 1210: 29
Condemnation of books'. 29, 35
Conflict at University of Paris'. 25-47
Consolation of Philosophy: 136
Corrections of the Bible: 90
Cosmographia (Aethicus Ister): 200
Data (Euclid): 156
De accidentibus senectutis: 347
De anima (Aristode): 126, 244ff, 294
De anima (Pseudo-Avicenna): see Liber de
anima
De anima/Liber sextus de naturalibus
(Avicenna): 188n, 32 Iff
De animalibtis (Avicenna): 78
De animalibus (book on Animals): 261
De artibus liberalibus: 64
De aspectibus (Al-Kindi): 243ff
De bello jurgurthino: 200
De caelo et mundo: 61, 200
De civitate dei (City of God): 176, 225,
346n, 347n
De cometis (Grosseteste): 288
INDEX RERUM
De communibus distinctionibus: 105
De conductibus aquarum (Philo of
Byzantium ?): 156
De congelations et conglutinatione lapidum:
111
De curvis superflciebus Archimedis: 156,
158
De dialectica (Augustine): 124ff
De disposition sperae (Introductorius in
almagesti; Epitome of Almagest;
Almagestum parvum): 188ff, 205, 207,
207n, 285, 285n, 288, 296, 307
De divinis nominibus. 87
De division philosophiae: 46
De doctrina Christiana: 89, 94, 96ff, 101,
139, 139n, 142, 147, 179, 191, 198,
225, 315
De erroribus medicorum: 319n ff, 345ff,
349, 357
Defato (Albertus Magnus): 187n
De febribus: 45
De genesi ad litteram: 225
De immortalitate animae (Augustine): 226
De impressionibus caelestibus: 45
De interpretation: 91, 113, 128, 125-6,
127n
De invention'. 137n
De ira: 407
De iride (Grosseteste): 284
De isoperimetris: 157
De laudibus mathematicis (Bacon): 152n
De lineis, angulis et flguris (Grosseteste):
235-6
De magnte (William Gilbert): 314
De modis signiflcandis: 68
De multiplication specierum: passim, 247ff
De multiplicationibus circa orations
accidentibus: 105
De mundo (Ps. Aristode): 162
De musica (Augustine): 223-41
De natura locorum (Albertus Magnus):
207, 211
De natura locorum: (Grosseteste): 246n,
288
De natura rerum (Bede): 340
De natura rerum (Nequam): 341
De oculis (Galen/Constantine the
African): 244
De ordin (Augustine): 225ff
De ortu scientiarum (Al-Farabi): 56, 79,
156-7; see Bacon - Classification of the
Scienes
De ortu scientiarum (Kilwardby): 56ff,
133n, 183, 237
427
De plantis: 370
De proprietatibus rerum (Bartholomaeus
Anglicus): 341
De quantitate animae (Augustine): 226
De quantitatibus datis: 156
De radiis: 245ff
De reganin senum (Ps Razi): 347
De replentibus locorum: 157
De retardation accidentium senctutis
(= Pseudo-Bacon): 325n, 347n
De scientiis (al-Farabi): 56, 100, 142,
145, 156-7, 164
De seminibus scripturarum: 76
De sensu (Aristode): 244ff
De sensu et sensato (Bacon): 304—5, 368n
De signis (Bacon): 80ff, 91, 109, 114,
118ff, 315
De situ et nominibus locorum Hebraicorum:
201
De solutionbus sophismatum: 105
De speculis (Euclid): 243ff
De speculis comburentibus (Bacon): 250ff,
313n
De speculis comburentibus (Ibn
al-Haytham): 156, 159
De sphaera (Sacrobosco): 213, 299
De sphera (Grosseteste): 288
De substantia orbis: 42
De triangulis [Philotegni] (Jordanus): 157
De tiinitate (Augustine): 225
De vegetabilibus: 43
De vetula (Pseudo Ovid): 193-5
De vulgare eloqtientia: 82
determinism: 47
Dialogues (Seneca): 407
Didascalia (al-Farabi): 141
Dietary (Gilbert Kymer): 355
Discovery of America: 206ff
Distinctions notandum: 105
Distinctions sophismatum: 105
Ecclesiastical commission: 35
Ecclesiastical council (Paris): 25-47
Elections: 47
Elements (Euclid) [Adelard]: 155ff, 160ff,
291
Elements (Euclid) [Campanus]: 161-2
Emperor vs. Papacy: 34
Encyclopaedic knowledge (13th c.):
213
English Franciscan Tradition: 49
Epistola de magnte (Petrus Peregrinus):
309n, 314
Epistola de secretis operibus artis et naturae
428
et de militate magiae: (De mirabilibus
potestate artis et mturae): 77, 277n,
295, 295n, 328ff, 365ff, 382n
Equisses pyrrhonienne: 126n
Errores philosophorum (Giles of Rome):
78n, 375
Etymologies (Isidore of Seville): 354
Europe in the High Middle Ages
(Mundy): 49-50
European scholars: 29
Experiential See Roger Bacon
Experimental Science: prerogatives -
See Roger Bacon
Faculty of Arts: 27, 36
Eons vitae (Avicebron): 245
Frederick II: 33
Friar-scholars, younger generation: 46
Geography (Ptolemy): 213, 215-7,
Geometria speculativa (Bacon): 156n, 171,
173
Greek Grammar (Bacon): 8 Iff, 368n
Grosseteste’s Commentary on the
Posterior Analytics (see Commentary . ..)
~ other ways in science: 40;
Grosseteste’s translations: 39;
works in Natural Science, 40
Hebrew Grammar (Bacon): 86
Hereford Map: 210
Hexaemeron (Grosseteste): 183, 376n
High Scholasticism: 37
Historia ecclesiastica (Bede): 347n
Historia scholastica: 52
Historiarum adversus paganos (De ormesta
mundi) [Orosius], 201
Histories: 52
Holy Land (Bacon’s description): 212
Introduction: 1-8
Introductions a la philosophic: 111
Introductorium mavus (Abu M acshar): 44,
193-7, 289
Invective contra medicorum: 349
Kilwardby’s Commentary: 69
Kitab al-athar al-‘ubuviyya: 46n
Kitab fasl al-Maqual (Averroes): 140
Knowledge of Greek and Hebrew: 52
Knowledge of Latin: 52
Latin Crusaders: 31
liber ade: 184
liber canonis Avicennae: 320ff
INDICES
liber de anima (Ps. Avicenna): 32Iff,
324, 330-1
Liber de hiis que superius accidunt: 46n
Liber de kata: 161
Liber de morte animae: 184
Liber de officiis et potestatibus spiritum:
184
Liber de operibus altis: 46n
Liber de superioribus signis: 46n
Liber fantasmatum: 184
Liber mineralium (Albertus Magnus):
333
Liber moysi: 184
Liber novem iudicum: 63
Liber piramidum Apolloni: 156
Liber plurimum judicum: 63
Liber sex scientiarum (Bacon): 325, 325n
Liber sigillis salamonis: 184n (see Liber
salamonis, 184)
Liber sufficientia: 188, 190
Liber triglossos: 81
Libri Aristotelis et Hermetis: 184
Libri nataturales: 26-47,
Lo composso da navigare: 214
Logic (Al-Ghazali): 145; See Didascalia
Lumen luminum (Ps. Razi): 319nff
mathematicians, fake: 78; see Roger
Bacon Classification of the Sciences;
Astronomy-Astrology
Mendicants and Seculars: 51-2
Machiavelli: 409
Metaphysical 26-47, 58, 111-2, 118,
234, 237, '292, 351
metaphysical basis of light: 59
Meteora (Albertus Magnus): 302-3
Meteora: sententia super (Aquinas): 29 7n
Meteorologica (Aristotle): 45-6, 111, 188,
244ff, 285, 297, 311, 322-3, 351,
35In, 390
Meteorologies (Averroes on): 298n
Metaphysics (Bacon): 153, 366, 367n
Michael Scot, Astrologer: 28, 28n, 33,
34, 36, 38, 84n
Moral Philosophy: 51, 405-9
Moralis philosophia (= Opus maius, VII):
9, 20n, lOln, 102, 139, 129n,
140n, 143-6, 194, 405-9 (See also
Opus maius)
Music’s transcendental role: 64
Naturales questiones (Seneca): 200, 205
Naturalis historia (Pliny): 200, 338ff, 349,
35In, 352n
Navigation: 214
INDEX RERUM
Mcomachean Ethics: 29, 35, 137n, 137ff,
292, 408
Notule M. Johannis de Gallicantu super
Johannisium (John Cokkys): 357
Older form of study: 49
On the rainbow and halo (Avicenna): 298n
Optica (Euclid): 243ff
Optics/De aspecdbus (Ibn al-Haytham):
171, 244—75, 284, 289-93
Optics/Optica/De aspectibus (Ptolemy):
156, 243ff
Opus maius: 42, 50, 74ff, 151, 175ff,
20 Iff, 223ff, 243ff, 277ff, 317ff,
337ff, 365ff
Opus minus: 51, 53ff, 15 Iff, 317ff,
365ff
Opus puerorum: 105
Opus tertium: 51, 74ff, 151, 20Iff, 223ff,
243ff, 277ff, 317ff, 337ff, 365ff
Ordinal of Alchemy (Thomas Norton):
356, 356n
Oxford: 46
Pantegni: 341
Parisian Decrees of 1210/1215: 26,
28-33
Perspectiva (= Opus maius, V): passim,
247ff, 286ff
Philosophia communis: 51
Philosophia disciplim: 79
Philosophy and Theology: 53
Philosophy of Aristotle: 52
Physical 69—70, 169, 285,
Physiognomia (Bartholomew of Messina):
368
Policraticus: 343, 343n
Posterior analytics: 52, 292, 295n
Practical Geometry (Boethius): 155
Prior Analytics: 96, 127
Quadrivium: 62
Questions on the First Philosophy of Aristotle
(Bacon): 290
Questiones Parisiennes de Bacon: 105
Reform of Education and Society: 49
Reform of Studies: 49
Rhetoric: 96, 125, 136n
Rhetoricam ad Herennium: 137n
Roger Bacon - Alchemy: 317-336
- Baconian alchemical
pseudepigrapha, 317
- idiosyncratic nature of Bacon’s
alchemical theories, 317
429
- theoretical-practical alchemy,
318
- Bacon’s Alchemy in Context
- Albertus Magnus, De mineralibus,
332-5
- Bibliography, 335-6
- “mercury alone” theory of
Amald of Villanova, John
Dastin, Bernard of Trier, 334
- the Summa perfectionis of
“Gerber”, 332-5
- Alchemy and Generation from
Elements
- Avicenna’s experiment and
stratification/distillation, 321
- dependence on Razi, 319
- Pseudo-Avicenna’s Liber de
anima, 321
- “simple and compound
humors”, 319-20
- Inanimate things, 322
- primary contribution on
generation, 323
- Razi’s 12 elements, 322
- three orders of humor,
321-22
- Medical Alchemy
- “celestial virtue”, 327
- “equal body”, 328, 331
- “equal complexion”, 326-7
- Bacon’s macrobiotic project, 325
- medical alchemy, Bacon’s
original contribution, 323-4
- “philosopher Artephius”, 328
- Bacon’s Alchemical Practice
- Avicenna’s Canon, 329
- based on the Epistola de secretis
operibus artis et naturae, - making
“The Philosopher’s Egg/
Philosopher’s Stone”, 328-330
- metallic transmutation and
macrobiotic program, 331-2
- Pseudo-Avicenna and the Secret
of Secrets, 330-1
- Quicksilver/alchemical elixir, 331
Roger Bacon - Astronomy-Astrology
in relation to scientia experimental,
175-198
- the applications of mathematics,
175
- Roger Bacon’s Apologia for Judicial
Astronomy/Astrology, 181-87
- accusation of “infallible”
prediction, 185

INDICES
- Authoritative and “True”
mathematicians: Aristode,
Avicenna, Ptolemy, Pseudo-
Ptolemy, Abu Ma'shar, 185
- defence against the theologians/
the etymology of the word
“mathematics”, 182
- fate, free will and “ordained
law of nature and will”, 186
- general or individual predictions
- universal Determinism,
183-86
- science/art of nature vs. magic,
184
- Task of Experimentalist, 187
- valid and invalid forms of
experimental science, 187
Aquinas and Bacon: response to
both Abu M a'shar and the
Pseudo-Ptolemaic texts, 195-197
Roger Bacon and the
Condemnations of 1277, 197
- Augustine, De doctrina Christiana,
198
Bacon’s Defence of Judicial
Astrology, 179-81
- Numbers and the Patristic
writers, 179-80
- Utility of Mathematics in
Religion, 180-1
Bacon’s Definition of
Astronomia-Astrologia, 179
Bacon as a follower of
Grosseteste: 192-3; Use of
Pseudo-Ptolemaic works, 193
Opus maius, Part I: The Polemic:
176
- Astrologia and Magic in ancient
world, 176
- neglect of both scientific
astrology and knowledge of
Magic by 13th c. theologians,
177
- Aristotle, astrologia and
Augustine, 178, 179-81
Opus maius, Part four: sources for
a Scientia experimentalis, 188-92
- Abu Ma'shar, Introductorium
maius, Ptolemy, Quadripartitum,
188-9; Pseudo-Ptolemy,
Centiloquium, 188-90;
Pseudo-Ptolemy (= Geminus)
De dispositions spherae, 188-9;
Avicenna, Liber sufficentia, 188-9;
necessary vs. possible, 190;
“true mathematicians who are
philosophers”, 191; crucial role
of Augustine, De doctrina
Christiana, 191-2
- Astronomy/astrology and 1277,
192
- Pseudo-Ovid: Source for Bacon’s
“Aristotle and Astrology”, 193-95
- Abu Ma'shar and Grosseteste, 194
Roger Bacon - Bibliography, Update
of “A Roger Bacon Bibliography,
1987,” Thomas S. Maloney,
395-404
Roger Bacon - Classification of the
Sciences, 49-66
- Bacon and the Reform of Studies,
49-53
- Six errors of theology, 51-3
- Spokesman for older
“Grosseteste Model” of studies,
49-50
- Bacon and Traditional
Classification of the Sciences
- Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana,
65
- Bacon’s advocacy of additional
sciences (Communia naturalia),
57-65
- Bacon’s schema, 63
- the Boethian, Cassiodorean and
Isidorean division, 53-4
- fusion of Boethian and Stoic
divisions, 54—5
- Grosseteste’s De artibus liberalibus,
64-5
- Impact of the Posterior analytics,
54-5
- Kilwardby’s De ortu scientiarum,
56-7, 62-3
- New works on the sciences:
Al-Farabi and Gundisallinus, 56
- 12th century classifications,
54-5
Roger Bacon - Geography and
Cartography, 199-222
- aim of chapter, 199
- Concluding judgment on
significance of Roger Bacon’s
geographical knowledge, 220-21
- Effects of Bacon’s Geographical
Ideas, 217-19
INDEX RERUM
- demand for adequate
instrumentation, 218-19
- influence on Renaissance
savants, John Dee, Richard
Eden, Leonard Digges, 218
- influence on Tmago mundi of
Pierre d’Ailly, 217-18
Geography and Cartography
in the Thirteenth Century,
213-15
- important English geographers
(12th century scholars), 213
- magnetized needle, 214
- Portolan charts, 214
- Sacrobosco, 213
The “Geographia” in the Opus
maius, 199-212
- Bacon and Albertus Magnus
on geographical knowledge,
202
- basis in earlier writers, 200—01
- climates and inhabited world,
207-9
- dependence on William of
Rubruck, 201
- geographical description, 212
- geographical “determinism”,
211-12
- geographical knowledge in the
service of Christian Mission,
202-04
- habitation of world, dimension
of ocean, 205-6
- lack of previous study, 200
- mappamundi, 209-211
- Opus tertium, 200
- section of Bacon’s geography
known to Christopher
Columbus through Tmago mundi
of Pierre d’Ailly, 206-7
- southern hemisphere and De
dispositions spherae, 207
The Mathematical Model,
215-17
- advocacy of “longitude and
latitude” before Renaissance
discovery of Ptolemy’s Geography,
215-16
- Tables: Alphonsine “Toledo”,
209; Al-Khwarazmi, 216
- location of birthplaces for
astrological use, 216-17
Visualization, 219-220
- maps, 219
431
Roger Bacon - Grammar: 67-102
- Aquinas on different locutiones,
85
- Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, 87—8;
- causes/rationes of language,
68-71
- comparatist analysis, 85;
- dependence of Word on the
“will”, 78
- dependencia, 71
- dependency of Latin Wisdom
on the Wisdom languages, 75
- Different Types of Languages,
81-3
- Etymologies, 88-89
- Augustine and the Artists,
92
- Bacon’s implicit dependence
on the De doctrina Christiana,
94
- categories of sign
(intermediate status) i.e.
interjections, 96
- Conclusion, 98-102
- Corrections of the Bible, 90
- Faculty of Arts, 90
- Grammar in relation to
Rhetoric, Poetics and Moralis
phihsophia, 100-102
- import of De doctrina Christiana,
90
- Ordo linguarum, 89-90
- Signs, De signis, Cst, De
interpretations, De doctrina
Christiana, 91-7
- Signs and natural
consequence, 96-7
- sign in 13th c. Theologians,
92-3
- Signs and 13th c. theology
i.e. Henry of Ghent and
Peter John Olivi, 98
- the classification of signs, 94
- the definition of Sign, and De
doctrina Christiana, 92
- the definition of Sign, 13th
c., 92-93
- the Tractatus de grammatica,
100
- exposition of “syntax” using
Sophisms, 68-9, 73
- figurative constructions, 69
- grammatical category, 70
- grammar and logic, 72
432 INDICES
- grammar and physical
principles, 71—2
- in arte, 71
- Influence of Avicenna and
Al-Kindi, 78
- Instruments and methods in
Analysis of Languages, 87-90
- intentionalist analysis of
grammarians, 72-4
- Kilwardby’s Commentary,
69-74
- knowledge of languages, 67-8
- Knowledge of languages useful
for Church and Commonwealth,
75-77
- Language, substantial unity,
accidental diversity, 83-6
- Languages of the cross, 81
- Languages of the Laity (vulgar),
82-3
- Latin, language of the clergy,
83
- literal-spiritual sense; typology,
80
- many meanings of Grammar 77
- Missing third section of Opus
maius, see Opus tertium, 78-9
- Modists, 86
- part three of Opus maius, Cst
and De signis, 80-81
- the “Power” of Words, 77-8
- practical goals of language, 68
- practical justification for study
of languages, 76
- principles of intentionalist
analysis, 73
- proprietas (inch Rythmic,
Musical), 84
- science o f languages and idioms, 79
- “science of Wisdom languages”,
74
- Speculative Grammar, 68-9
- Student’s Guide, Ms. Ripoll
109, 69
- Summa grammatica, 68-74
- syllogism, 71
- The Knowledge of Languages,
81-90
- The Latin’s fantasy
“etymologies”, 86-7
- Third Part of the Opus maius,
74-81
- Uses of language in philosophy/
theology, 78-9
- Utility of language for religious
conversion, 76-77
- Words and multiplication of
species, 77
Roger Bacon - Latin Translators and
Translations of the Twelfth and
Thirteenth Centuries, 25-48
- issue: condemnation of books
on Aristotelian natural
philosophy and metaphysics, 26
- Thorndike and Wingate on
Bacon’s attitude to Translations,
25
- Bacon on Arrival of Aristotelian
Science in Paris
- limitations of Bacon’s account,
28
- the case of Alexander of Hales,
27-9
- Thorndike and Wingate on the
inadequacies of Bacon’s
account, 26-9
- Bacon’s Critique of Translations
and Translators
- Bacon’s plan to rival Albertus
Magnus as an authority, 41-2
- Bacon’s scientific method is
“Illuminism,” and tied to
Averroism, 42-3
- his neglect of large quantity of
works translated since early
12th Century, 38
- impartiality about Grosseteste’s
translating competence, 39-40
- negative attitude, 37-8
- negative attitude to Albertus
Magnus, 40-41
- no mention of Grosseteste’s trs.
of Mcomachean Ethics, 39-40
- role of Speculum astrorwmiae in
lifting ban of 1210, 41
- strictures against Hermann the
German and William of
Moerbecke, misplaced, 38-9
- Parisian Decrees of 1210/1215
and the libri naturales, 29-37
- Abu M a'shar as the new
auctoritas in scientific astrology,
32
- Bacon correct in view that
Aristotle’s libri naturales texts and
commentaries by Avicenna and
Averroes not available, 32-31
INDEX RERUM
- “commenta” and “summa”, not
classical (Greek) commentaries,
30
- confusion about Metaphysics/
Theology/Astrology, 32-33
- 1229-31: “Parens
scientiarum”, 33
- expurgation commission of
1231, 35-7
- mediating role of astrological
works, 32
- Michael Scot, Frederick II, and
Aristotelian science at the
Universities of Bologna and
Paris, 33-35
- not the commentaries of
Avicenna and Averroes; 30-1
- place and significance of the
Speculum astrorwmiae, 36-7
- prescriptions of 1210 in effect
up to 1254, 36
- testimony of William Brito, 31
- the numerous Arabian
“introductions” to the science of
the stars, 30
- Translations favored by Bacon,
43-7
- “arabic” orientation of Oxford
Aristotelianism, 46
- Bacon’s “conservative” defence
of experimental books, 47
- Bacon and Grosseteste as
continuing English 12th c.
scholarship, 44
- growth of influence of Avicenna
and Averroes over Abu
Ma'shar and other astrological
writers, 47
- Isaac De febribus and the De
impressionibus caelestibus attributed
to Aristotle, 45-6
- Parisian aversion to “arabic”
Aristotelianism, 46
- perversitas translations, 43
- predominant “astrological” and
“deterministic” character of the
Aristotelian science in first wave
of translations, 47
- role of Abu M a'shar’s
Introductorium maius, Pseudo-
Ptolemy, Centibquium, Pseudo-
Aristotle, Secret of Secrets,
Avicenna’s oriental philosophy,
44-5
433
Roger Bacon - Life, Career and
Works: 9—24
- Life and Career, 9-21
- A Roger Bacon, Clericus de curia
Regis in Oxford, 1233, 13
- Bacon’s edition of the Secretum
secretorum, begun in Paris,
completed at Oxford, c. 1280,
20
- Bacon’s influence in History of
Science, 20-1
- Bacon - not a “student in the
arts” under Grosseteste, 11-12
- Bacon in Paris, 1247, 1251,
1256, 15
- Bacon possibly a disciple of
Grosseteste a iuventute, 12-13
- Bacon’s “research proposal” to
Pope Clement IV, 10—11
- Condemnation of Bacon by
Master General of Franciscan
Order, 19
- contact with Cardinal Guy de
Foulques (Pope Clement IV),
17
- De multiplicatione specierum,
Compendium studii philosophiae and
related works, 19
- entrance to Franciscan Order,
17
- 40 years of experience in study,
11
- he did “See” the prominent
Oxford and Lincoln scholars
mentioned, 11-12
- Inception in Arts at University
of Paris, 13-14
- influence of De vetula of Ps.
Ovid (Richard of Foumival), 16
- no agreement on chronology,
9-10
- Oxford as first University to
teach Perspectiva, 12-13
- personal acquaintance with
Adam Marsh, 14
- possible meeting with Grosseteste
and Adam Marsh in 1245,
15-16
- possible travel to Oxford and
Lincoln, 15
- purpose of Papal mandatum and
the nature of the Opus maius,
the connection with Latin
Averroism, 17-18
434 INDICES
- teaching at Paris, 1237-47 (?),
14
Bacon’s Works: Brief Introduction,
21-3
- example of inauthentic
medical-alchemical works, 22;
- need for new critical editions of
all the works, 22
- requirement of new edition to
match that of William of
Ockham, 23
Roger Bacon - Light, Vision and the
Universal Emanation of Force,
243-276
- Introduction, Bacon’s significance
in the history of Perspective
Bacon’s Sources, 243-4
- Light and its propagation
- Bacon’s sources, 261
- Bacon’s use of metaphysical
assumptions (principle of
uniform action), 257
- extramission/intromission
theories, 261-4
- geometry of the eye, 260
- historical significance of Bacon’s
theory and its relationship to
Johannes Kepler, 265
- mirrors, images, 253-5
- Platonic-Augustinian themes,
264
- Reflection/Refracton, 251-56
- schematic drawing of eye, 257
- structure of eye, 256-9
- the geometry of propagation,
250-51
- vision and the eye, 256-65
- The Methodology of Perspective
265-72
- a new and (perhaps) modem
methodology?, 265-6
- Bacon’s achievement, 272-73
- Bibliography on Bacon’s theory
of Light and Perspective 273-5
- experience and Experiment,
266-8
- Four conclusions on experience
and Experiment, 268-72
- function of experience and
Experiment: to confirm, refute
or challenge theoretical claims,
271-2
- limits of his extension of the
geometrical analysis to the basic
principles of perspective 266-7
- strong mathematical
orientation, 266
- The Multiplication of Species,
245-50;
- Agents, matter, form, potency,
250-51
- Bacon on radiation of force,
and Al-Kindi’s universal force,
246
- First Christian European scholar
in field: Robert Grosseteste,
245-6
- medium and contiguity, 249-50
- Neoplatonic roots, 245
- Plotinus, Al-Kindi, Avicebron,
245
- species elicited from potency in
matter (no species passes from
one agent to another), 249
- the doctrine of Species, 247-50
Roger Bacon - logique: 103-132
- appelatio univoca/reference,
111-112
- Augustin, De dialectice 124-26
- Bacon and Richard Rufus of
Cornwall, 121-23
- Bacon’s Summa de sophismatibus et
distinctionibus, 105-09
- Bacon’s Summulae dialectices,
109-117
- contexte extra-linguistique, 108
- De interpretation 9, 19a23-24,
113
- De signis/ Compendium studii theologiae,
117-132
- deux periodes dans la production
logique baconnienne, 103-4
- inclusio, 106-107
- influence of Aristoteles novus on
Bacon, 111
- influence of Aristotle, 127-8
- influence of Stoic theory, 126n
- intention de signifier du locuteur,
107-8
- I’analogie, 118-121
- P“approche contextuelle” regnant
d’Oxford, 110
- La reform bgique du discours, 121-23
- la signification d’une phrase, 109
- la typologie Baconienne des
signes, 124-28
INDEX RERUM
- lois psychologiques et semantiques,
131-2
- l’ouvre logique de Bacon, 103
- magna controversial inter modemos, 114
- parallels in Text-books d’Oxford;
Robert Kilwardby, 110-111
- problemes de predication, 120
- quantification universelle, 106
- relation to the Parisian Introductions
a la philosophic, 111
- scope is that of a Summula super
totam logicam, 110
- scope of work, 106
- Signification, 129—32
- “Signification par
accompagnement” - Avicenna et
Ghazali, 129
- signification/construction, 116
- 13th c. Genre of Distinctions
sophismatum, 105
Roger Bacon - Medicine, 337-364
- suppositio, restrictio, 112-13
- Text-books d’Oxford, 104
- theorie de la determination {composed
and divided sense o f proposition),
114—15
- Theorie du sign et connotation, 124-32
- Thomas Aquinas, 127n
- transumptio/“transfert semantique”, 117
- une orientation “analytique,” 121
- un theorie du sens naturel,
109-110
- un traite sur les syncategoremes-
attribution a Roger Bacon, 104—5;
- Uses of Priscian and grammarians,
116
Roger Bacon - Mathematics, Knowledge
of, 151-174
- Bacon’s Aristotelian abstractionist
view of mathematical objects, 170
- Bibliography, 172-74
- Clarification and Pedagogy:
- division of mathematics, 164
- mathematics and experience,
162-3
- Communia mathematica, 152ff
- Conclusion: Geometry and common
Mathematicals, 169-71
- Consequences of Communality
- Communicating numbers, 168
- mathematics: the science of
quantity, 165-68
- proportions and ratios, 166-8
- History and Authorities, 153-62
- Adelard of Bath on Euclid, 155
435
- ancient and Latin authors,
156-7
- historican dimension, 154
- mathematicians of Bacon’s
times
- John of London/John
Bandoun, 158-9; Peter of
Maricourt {Petrus Peregrinus),
159; Campanus of Novara,
160—62; Master Nicholas,
162; Robert Grosseteste and
Adam Marsh, 162
- restoration of knowledge, 154
- Introduction, cult of Roger Bacon,
151
- John Wallis letter to Leibniz, on
Roger Bacon, 151
- magicians, mathematics
(Mathesis/matesis), 152
- Bacon and “a properly educated
Patriarch” {paterfamilias), 337
- Bibliography, 361-3
- Encyclopedic/Natural Historical
Medicine, 338-342
- Bacon’s sources, 342
- Bartholomew’s medical sources:
the Pantegni and the Viaticum,
341
- De natura rerum of Alexander
Nequam; De proprietatibus rerum
of Bartholomaeus Anglicus,
341
- De natura rerum of Bede, 340
- folk-medicine, magic, 338
- Greek idealization of the young
Male athlete and Roman
attitudes, 339
- knowledge needed by
paterfamilias, 338
- Monastic medicine, 340
- Roman and Late Roman
writers (Pliny, Martianus
Capella, Macrobius,
Cassiodorus, 339-40
- Medical Scholasticism and its
Critics
- Adam and resurrected body,
347-9
- Bacon’s argument for
“simplicity” in fermentation/
distillation, 350-51
- Bacon’s Antidotarium, 357
- Bacon’s criticism, akin to
436 INDICES
Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter
of Blois John of Salisbury,
342-3
- Bacon’s diatribe against the
“academic/scholastic” doctors,
349-50
- Bacon’s model: Aristotle as
advisor to Alexander: Secretum
secretorum, 343-4
- Bacon’s treatise on
quantification in medicine,
357-8
- compounding Drugs, 353
- Gilbert Kymer, 355-56
- his criticism of ignorance in
compounding of mathematics in
compounding of drugs, 358-9
- ideas for a Christian medicine,
345
- John Cokkys, 356-7
- Influence in Late Medieval
England, 354—60
- mathematics and medicine,
352-3
- medicine a part of “Scientia
experimentalis,” 345-7
- medicine and philosophical
argument-natural philosophy,
353
- medicine as a “second
philosophy,” 354
- on laxatives and opiates, 359
- regime of health/non-naturals,
354-57
- “simplicity” concerning “healing
power of Plants and Animals,”
351-2
- astrology and medicine,
360
- synthesis and sense of wonder
for Nature, 360-1
- the De regimine senum of Razi,
347
- The Nature and Scope of
Bacon’s Medical Writings,
344-60
- Thomas Norton, 356
Roger Bacon - Moral Science, 405-9
- Bacon on the Structure of Moral
Science, 405-9
- his program for a predictive
sociology of Religions, 408
- interrelation and cross-reference of
Language study, Mathematics as
applied to Natural Science and
Moral Science, 405
- major influence of Seneca, 407
- Opus mams as a whole: a work in
Moralis philosophia, 405
- Two conflicting ethical systems:
Aristotle and the Machiavellian
Virtu, 408-9
Roger Bacon - Music, 223-242
- Aristotle, Kilwardby on music and
gesture, 237
- Augustine’s De musica and
Aristotle’s Metaphysica, 234—5
- Bacon on meter, 234
- Bacon’s presentation of Music in
his Opera as examples of Medieval
Compositional style, 225n
- Bacon’s writings as witness to
influence of Augustine’s De musica
(and other works: De immortalitate
animae; De quantitate animae), 226
- grammar, logic and music, 227-8
- Grosseteste and Bacon, 224
- imaginary notions of Bacon’s
Teaching, 223
- importance of Augustine’s De
musica, 223-4
- Influence of Augustine’s De ordine,
De doctrina Christiana, De trinitate, De
civitate dei, De genesi ad litteram, 225
- Latin Aristotle reinforces and
extends Augustine, 234ff
- mathematics and music, 226, 228,
230-32
- mistaken views of Aristotle contra
Augustine, 224ff
- music, chronology and time, 235
- music and language, 239-41
- music and philosophy/theology,
238
- music and the Physica of Aristotle,
236
- music and the Scriptures, 232-3
- the utility of geometry, 232
- ubiquity of music reference in
Bacon, 229
- word and physical world, 239
Roger Bacon - Rhetoric and Poetics,
133-150
- Averroes Commentary on the Poetics,
135, 140, 149
- Bacon’s argument for Aristotle
INDEX RERUM 437
over Cicero as auctor in rhetoricam, - threefold division of rhetoric, 145
137 - true vs. frivolous poetry (Horace
- Bacon’s debt to Latin tradition, vs. Ovid), 145
139 Roger Bacon - Sciences, introduction,
- Bacon’s fusion of Augustine, 1-9
Al-Farabi and Abu Ma'shar, 142 - brief review of new Bacon
- Bacon and Giles of Rome, 134, research, 2-4
147-49 - brief review of 19th/20th c.
- Bacon’s Opus maius as a rhetorical accounts of Bacon as scientist,
persuasio, 139-41
1-2
- Bacon’s rejection of the Trivium, 134
- presentation of contents of
- Bacon’s treatise on rhetoric in
volume, 4—8
logicalibus, 133
Roger Bacon - Scientia experimentalis,
- Bacon’s theory of the relation of
277-315
rhetoric and poetics to Logic,
- Bacon and the issue of an
135-6;
experimental science, 277-9
- Bacon on the uses of rhetoric and
- Roger Bacon and Francis
poetics in Moralis philosophia,
Bacon, 277n
135-6
- Argumentum and Experirnentum: Opus
- Ciceronian rhetoric-Italian City
maius, part six, ch. 1, 290-3
Rhetoric, 134—5
- Analysis of Aristotelian texts,
- doctrine of Signs, 148
ibid.
- Hermannus Alemannus translation
- Bacon’s use of Euclid, Prop. 1:
of the Aristotelian rhetoric, 135,
A critique of a pure Analytic
148
account of human learning ?,
- Gundissalinus and Al-Farabi,
137 290-1
- cognitio per experientiam (Ibn
- Kinds of argument: Demonstrative,
al-Haytham), and priority of
Dialectical, rhetorical, 144
this kind of knowledge over
- lateness of translations into
argumentum, 292
vernacular, Thomas Hobbes, 148
- intuition (intuitio) and
- Operabilia, 143-4
knowledge, 290-1
- persuasion and doctrina, 144—5
- Bacon’s Scientia experimentalis: a
- Philosophia moralis - uses of rhetoric
Reconsideration
and Poetic argument, 142-47
- epistemological status of both a
- Poetics as finis logkae, 138
science of the rainbow and a
- Poetics and Music, 138
Scientia experimentalis in
- rhetoric, poetics and analogical
Grosseteste and Bacon, 285-7
predication, 146
- Sources of Bacon’s science,
- rhetoric, poetics and interpretation
284-5
of Scripture, 146
- Modem interpretations
- rhetoric and theology:
- Whewell, 279; Duhem/Carton,
Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana,
280; Lynn Thorndike, 280-82;
Pseudo-Dionysius, Cicero, 147
George Sarton, 282; Easton,
- rhetoric and utility, 144;
Crombie, more recent authors,
- Situation at the University of
282-3
Paris c. 1266 - ignorance of new
- Roger Bacon and Experiment:
translations of rhetoric and
Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt
poetics, 145
- the importance of the Mcomachean - Bacon and Petrus Peregrinus
Ethics, 137-8, 144, 148 as a team: Bacon wrote the
- Thomas Aquinas, William of scientific treatise and
Moerbecke, Giles of Rome and propaganda; Petrus did the
the Rhetoric at Paris, 1270, 147-9 experimental construction of
438 INDICES
the Burning Mirror, 312-3
- Bacon’s praise of a great
experimenter, 311-2
- Bacon sent a “cystallinum
sphericum” to the Pope with his
Opus maius and instructed his
student, Iohannes, to demonstrate
it, 312-3
- influences of Bacon in the
Renaissance and early Modem
times, 314—5
- limits of Bacon’s personal
experimenting due to his
circumstances, 313
- significance of Bacon’s
experimental work, 315
- Sources for the term Scientia
experimentalis, 287-90
- Bacon’s debt to Ibn al-Haytham
for term expenmentatio (i'tibar),
289
- experimentum in Grosseteste,
287
- importance of “BOOKS in
Science” for Grosseteste and
Bacon, 288-9
- indications of departure from
empeiria of Aristotle in early
Bacon, 290
- The Definition of Scientia
experimentalis
- Function of Scientia experimentalis:
Adjudication of an Art and
Science of Nature and its
separation from Magic: the
need for a Practical Logic,
294-5
- fusion of these works with
Augustine’s doctrine of
illumination, 293
- the importance of Pseudo-
Ptolemy, Centiloquium and
Commentary, 293
- Two kinds of experience:
physical and moralis, 293-4
- The Uses of Scientia experimentalis
for Church and Commonwealth,
309-11
- Three Prerogatives for this
Scientific Method:
(1) confirmation, (2) new
experimental knowledge with
instruments, (3) Knowledge of
future, 295-309
INDEX RERUM 439
- example: color of rainbow, - Secretum secretorum, not the main Summa perfectionis (Ps. Gerber): 332ff,
303-6 inspiration for the Scientia 367n
- example of an experimentum experimentalis, 370—1 Summae: 30
cruris. Rainbow, 297-303 Summulae dialectices: 95, 103-4, 109-17
- second prerogative, 306-7 Papacy (Vacancy): 51 Syncategoremata (attrib. to Roger Bacon
- third prerogative, 307-9 Perspectiva (originally taught at Oxford): 12 and Robert Bacon): 104
Physica: 69
Roger Bacon - Secret o f Secrets,
365-394 Poetics and Rhetoric: 177 Tartars: 200ff
Priscian, Commentaries on: 68ff Text-Books d’Oxford: 104, 110
- Abbreviations/Bibliography,
392-3 Priscain minor: 68ff The Prince (N. Machiavelli): 409
Pyrrhonian sceptic influence: 124n Timaeus (Cicero): 118
- a good vantagepoint for Bacon’s
career, 365 Timaeus (Plato): 243
Sacred Scripture: 51-2 Tractatus de distinctionibus communibus in
- Alphonse of Poitiers’s illness
observed by Bacon in 1252, Science of Weights (scientia de sophismatibus accidentibus: 105
ponderibus): 62 Tractatus de grammatica: 99
386-7
- Aristode’s advice to Alexander, Science in the Middle Ages: 54 Tractatus in qua fit de experiencia in
Science at Paris: 27 communi (Bacon): 266
388-9
- astrology and medicine, 384—6 scientia de impressionibus: 60 Tractatus de grammatica: 99
Secretum secretorum: 179, 186-7, 283, Translations: 25-47
- Bacon as A Man of his Age,
390-1 285, 307, 308n, 328ff, 343, 355, Translations from Arabic: 40
365ff, 407 Translators: 25-47; see 44
- Bacon as Aristotle to a Princely
Alexander: role of his edition of Sentences: 51-2
Sophistical Refutations: 96 University of Bologna: 33
the Secretum, 379ff
- Bacon’s defence of Aristotle and Speculum astronomiae: 30n, 36, 38, 41, University of Paris: 26, 34, 46
184n University of Tolouse: 35
Astrology, 375-6;
- Bacon’s praise of Aristotle, Speculum historiale (Vincent of Beauvais): Utopian world: 49
201
78-9
- Bacon’s remarks in his edition Stoic influence on Bacon: 7, 124ff, Viaticum: 341
302-3, 405-9 Vivarium: 8
of this text: connection with
Parisian Condemnations of Summa contra gentiles: 195 Vulgus studentium: 49
Summa de sophismatibus et distinctionibus:
1277, 373-6
103, 105-9 Tmago mundi (Pierre d’Ailly): 206,
- Bacon’s scholastic methods, 382
- Bacon and the Speculum Summa grammatica (Bacon): 68ff, 91 217-8
astronomiae, 377
- change in life c. 1247 not due
to the Secretum secretorum, 369-70
- date of Bacon’s Edition of this
work, 366-9
- embarrassment about Spanish
word in De plantis, not reason
for this change c. 1247, 370
- importance of Secretum secretorum
for Bacon, 372-3
- making the Secretum user
friendly, 381
- the maximum secretum, 387
- “Mirror for Princes”, 384
- nature of the Secretum secretorum,
365-6
- Overview of Secretum secretorum
with Bacon’s interpretations,
379-91
- Recension completed at Oxford,
380
 LIST OF AUTHORS

Alain De Libera, Professor, Directeur d’etudes a l’Ecole Pratique des

Hautes Etudes, Paris.
Faye Getz, Associate Professor, Department of History of Medicine,
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Jeremiah Hackett, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate
Studies, Department of Philosophy, University of South Carolina-
Columbia.
Herbert M. Howe, Professor Emeritus, Classics, University of Wis­
consin-Madison.
Richard Lemay, Professor Emeritus, Graduate School, City University
of New York.
David C. Lindberg, Hilldale Professor, Department of the History of
Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Thomas S. Maloney, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University
of Louisville, Louisville-Ky.
A. George Molland, Professor Emeritus, Department of History and
Economics, University of Aberdeen.
William R. Newman, Associate Professor, Department of the History
of Science, Harvard University.
Irene Rosier-Catach, Professor, Departement de Recherches Linguisti-
ques, Universite Paris VII; Directeur de Recherches au C.N.R.S.;
Chargee de Conferences a 1’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes.
Nancy van Deusen, Professor and Chair, Faculty of Music, The
Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California.
Steven J. Williams, Assistant Professor, Department of History, New
Mexico Highlands University, Las Vegas, NM.
David Woodward, Arthur H. Robinson Professor, Department of Geo­
graphy, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
 STUDIEN UND TEXTE
ZUR GEISTESGESCHICHTE
DES MITTELALTERS

3. K och, J. (Hrsg.). Humanismus, Mystik und Kunst in der Welt des Mittelalters. 2nd. impr.
1959. reprint under consideration
4. T homas Aquinas, Expositio super librum Boethii De Trinitate. Ad fidem codicis auto-
graphi nec non ceterorum codicum manuscriptorum recensuit B. Decker. Repr.
1965. ISBN 90 04 02173 6
5. K och, J. (Hrsg.). Artes liberates. Von der antiken Bildung zur Wissenschaft des
Mittelalters. Repr. 1976. ISBN 90 04 04738 7
6. M euthen, E. Ktrche und Heilsgeschichte bei Gerhoh von Reichersberg. 1959. ISBN 90 04 02174 4
7. N othdurft, K.-D. Studien zum Einfluss Senecas auf die Philosophie und Theologie des
12. Jahrhunderts. 1963. ISBN 90 04 02175 2
9. Zimmermann, A. (Hrsg.). Verzeichnis ungedruckter Kommentare zur Metaphysik und Physik
des Aristoteles aus der fe it von etwa 1250-1350. Band I. 1971. ISBN 90 04 02177 9
10. M cCarthy, J. M. Humanistic Emphases in the Educational Thought o f Vincent ofBeauvais.
1976. ISBN 90 04 04375 6
11. W illiam of D oncaster. Explicatio Aphorismatum Philosophicorum. Edited with Annota­
tions by O. Weijers. 1976. ISBN 90 04 94403 5
12. Pseudo-Boece. De Disciplina Scolarium. Edition critique, introduction et notes par
O. Weijers. 1976. ISBN 90 04 04768 9
13. J acobi, K. Die Modalbegriffe in den logischen Schriften des Wilhelm von Shyreswood und in
anderen Kompendien des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts. Funktionsbestimmung und Gebrauch
in der logischen Analyse. 1980. ISBN 90 04 06048 0
14. Weijers, O. (Ed.). Les questions de Craton et leurs commentates. Edition critique. 1981.
ISBN 90 04 06340 4
15. H ermann of Carinthia. De Essentiis. A Critical Edition with Translation and
Commentary by C h. Burnett. 1982. ISBN 90 04 06534 2
17. J ohn of Salisbury. Entheticus Maior and Minor. Edited by J. van Laarhoven.
1987. 3 vols. 1. Introduction, Texts, Translations; 2. Commentaries and Notes;
3. Bibliography, Dutch Translations, Indexes. 1987. ISBN 90 04 07811 8
18. Richard Brinkley. Theory of Sentential Reference. Edited and Translated with Intro­
duction and Notes by M. J. Fitzgerald. 1987. ISBN 90 04 08430 4
19. Alfred of Sareshel. Commentary on the Metheora of Aristotle. Critical Edition,
Introduction and Notes by J. K. O tte . 1988. ISBN 90 04 08453 3
20. Roger Bacon. Compendium of the Study of Theology. Edition and Translation with
Introduction and Notes by T. S. M aloney. 1988. ISBN 90 04 08510 6
21. Aertsen, J. A. Nature and Creature. Thomas Aquinas’s Way of Thought. 1988.
ISBN 90 04 08451 7
22. T achau, K. H. Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham. Optics, Epistemology and
the Foundations of Semantics, 1250-1345. 1988. ISBN 90 04 08552 1
23. Frakes, J. C. The Fate of Fortune in the Early Middle Ages. The Boethian Tradition.
1988. ISBN 90 04 08544 0
24. M uralt, A. de. L ’Enjeu de la Philosophie Medievale. Etudes thomistes, scotistes,
occamiennes et gregoriennes. Repr. 1993. ISBN 90 04 09254 4
 25. L ivesey, S. J. Theology and Science in the Fourteenth Century. Three Questions on the 50. Etzkorn, G. J. Iter Vaticanum Franciscanum. A Description of Some One Hundrec
Unity and Subaltemation of the Sciences from John of Reading’s Commentary on Manuscripts of the Vaticanus Latinus Collection. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10561 1
the Sentences. Introduction and Critical Edition. 1989. ISBN 90 04 09023 1 51. Sylwanowicz, M. Contingent Causality and the Foundations of Duns Scotus’ Metaphysics
>6. Elders, L. J. The Philosophical Theology of St Thomas Aquinas. 1990. ISBN 90 04 09156 4 1996. ISBN 90 04 10535 2
-7. W issink, J. B. (Ed.). The Eternity of the World in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas and his 52. A ertsen, J. A. Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendental[s. The Case of Thoma:
Contemporaries. 1990. ISBN 90 04 09183 1 Aquinas. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10585 9
28. Schneider, N. Die Kosmologie des Franciscos de Marchia. Texte, Quellen und Unter- 53. H onnefelder, L., R. Wood, M. Dreyer (Eds.). John Duns Scotus. Metaphysics anc
suchungen zur Naturphilosophie des 14. Jahrhunderts. 1991. ISBN 90 04 09280 3 Ethics. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10357 0
29. L angholm, O. Economics in the Medieval Schools. Wealth, Exchange, Value, Money 54. H olopainen, T. J. Dialectic and Theology in the Eleventh Century. 1996.
and Usury according to the Paris Theological Tradition, 1200-1350. 1992. ISBN 90 04 10577 8
ISBN 90 04 09422 9 55. Synan, E.A. (Ed.). Questions on the De Anima of Aristotle by Magister Adam Burley ana
30. R ijk, L. M. de. Peter o f Spain (Petrus Hispanus Portugalensis): Syncategoreumata. First Donunus Walter Burley 1997. ISBN 90 04 10655 3
Critical Edition with an Introduction and Indexes. With an English Translation by 56. Schupp, F. (Hrsg.). Abbo von Fleury: De syllogismis hypotheticis. Textkritisch
J oke Spruyt. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09434 2 herausgegeben, iibersetzt, eingeleitet und kommentiert. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10748 7
31. Resnick, I. M. Divine Power and Possibility in St. Peter Damian’s De Divina Omni- 57. H ackett, J. (Ed.). Roger Bacon and the Sciences. Commemorative Essays. 1997.
potentia. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09572 1 ISBN 90 04 10015 6
32. O ’Rourke, F. Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics ofAquinas. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09466 0 58. H oenen, M.J.F.M. and N auta, L. (Eds.). Boethius in the Middle Ages. Latin anc
33. H all, D. C. The Trinity. An Analysis of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Expositio of the De Vernacular Traditions of the Consolatio philosophicte. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10831 9
Trinitate of Boethius. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09631 0 59. G oris, W. Einheit als Prinzip und 2Jel. Versuch iiber die Einheitsmetaphysik des OpiL
34. Elders, L. J. The Metaphysics of Being of St. Thomas Aquinas in a Historical Perspective. tripartitum Meister Eckharts. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10905 6
1992. ISBN 90 04 09645 0 60. R ijk, L.M. de (Ed.). Giraldus Odonis O.F.M.: Opera Philosophica. Vol. 1.: Logica
35. Westra, H. J. (Ed.). From Athens to Chartres. Neoplatonism and Medieval Thought. Critical Edition from the Manuscripts. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10950 1
Studies in Honour of Edouard Jeauneau. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09649 3
36. Schulz, G. Veritas est adrequatio intellectus et rei. Untersuchungen zur Wahrheitslehre
des Thomas von Aquin und zur Kritik Kants an einem iiberlieferten Wahrheits-
begriff. 1993. ISBN 90 04 09655 8
37. K ann, C h . Die Eigenschqften der Termini. Eine Untersuchung zur Perutilis logica Alberts
von Sachsen. 1994. ISBN 90 04 09619 1
38. J acobi, K. (Hrsg.). Argumentationstheorie. Scholastische Forschungen zu den logischen
und semantischen Regeln korrekten Folgems. 1993. ISBN 90 04 09822 4
39. Butterworth, C. E., and B. A. K essel (Eds.). The Introduction o f Arabic Philosophy
into Europe. 1994. ISBN 90 04 09842 9
40. K aufmann, M. Begrijfe, Sdtze, Dinge. Referenz und Wahrheit bei Wilhelm von
Ockham. 1994. ISBN 90 04 09889 5
41. H ulsen, C. R. Zjir Semantik anaphorischer Pronomina. Untersuchungen scholastischer
und modemer Theorien. 1994. ISBN 90 04 09832 1
42. Rijk, L. M. de (Ed. & Tr.). Nicholas of Autrecourt. His Correspondence with Master
Giles and Bernard of Arezzo. A Critical Edition from the Two Parisian M anu­
scripts with an Introduction, English Translation, Explanatory Notes and Indexes.
1994. ISBN 90 04 09988 3
43. Schonberger, R. Relation als Vergleich. Die Relationstheorie des Johannes Buridan
im Kontext seines Denkens und der Scholastik. 1994. ISBN 90 04 09854 2
44. Saarinen, R. Weakness of the Will in Medieval Thought. From Augustine to Buridan.
1994. ISBN 90 04 09994 8
45. Speer, A. Die entdeckte Natur. Untersuchungen zu Begriindungsversuchen einer
„scientia naturalis“ im 12. Jahrhundert. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10345 7
46. T e V elde, R. A. Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas. 1995.
ISBN 90 04 10381 3
47. T uninetti, L. F. „Per Se Notum“. Die logische Beschaffenheit des Selbstverstand-
lichen im Denken des Thomas von Aquin. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10368 6
48. H oenen, M.J.F.M. und De L ibera, A. (Hrsg.). Albertus Magnus und der Albertismus.
Deutsche philosophische Kultur des Mittelalters. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10439 9
49. Back, A. On Reduplication. Logical Theories of Qualification. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10539 5