Bacon, Roger

Bacon, Roger (c.1214/20–1292 or later), English philosopher. His earliest writings are a series of quaestiones on works attributed to Aristotle. He then turned to the study of languages, mathematics, and natural sciences. About 1257 he entered the Franciscan Order, probably in Oxford. In Paris he had the chance to expound his ideas on the defects in western education to a priest who was in 1265 to become Pope Clement IV. The Pope bade him dispatch to Rome an account of his doctrines ‘secretly and without delay’. Bacon set to work and in late 1267 or early 1268 sent the Pope an encyclopaedic work in seven parts known as the ‘Opus maius’, in which he outlined the causes which had hindered the progress of philosophy among the Latins and had weakened W. Christendom in its struggle against Islam. The work also stressed the importance of the study of languages for a proper understanding of the Bible, and the value of mathematics, optics, the natural sciences, and moral philosophy in strengthening W. Christendom. Two shorter works, the ‘Opus minus’ and the ‘Opus tertium’, were partly synopses and partly elaborations of sections of the ‘Opus maius’. The death of Clement IV in 1268 ended any hope of Papal commendation of his ideas. In 1277 he is said to have been condemned by the General of the Franciscan Order for ‘suspect novelties’ and ‘dangerous doctrine’; the background of the condemnation is not known.