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History and Evolution:
By William E. Steinman:
Part 91, Universities, Grosseteste, and Bacon:
December 20, 2004:
While all of this royalty was threshing around, taxing, looting, and pillaging, other things were going on in England. One of these was the beginnings of the great Oxford University. Though there were schools at Oxford since the 9th century, Oxford university began in 1167. One story has it that this university was founded because English students were barred from the University of Paris. For sure, the school was modeled on the one in Paris with studies in theology, law, medicine, and the liberal arts. Oxford became the leading center of learning during the dark ages and remains one of the best to this day.
Another great university was founded at Cambridge around 1209. The story is that students from Oxford migrated to Cambridge to escape riots in Oxford. It seems the Oxford townspeople and the students did not mix well. Some of the students were allowed to stay and the University of Cambridge was the result. This also became a great center of learning and was particularly so during the Renaissance.
One really hard nut in this time was the English Prelate Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253). This guy was chancellor of Oxford from about 1215 to 1221. He also founded the Oxford Franciscan school and was its first lecturer in theology. Later, he resigned and became Bishop of Lincoln where he put up a struggle against Henry III in his effort to control church affairs. That was not risky enough for him. He also censured Pope Innocent IV for shaking down the English sees and for putting non-English men in charge of the sees. He must have gotten away with this for he lived to a ripe old age.
Another interesting personage of this time was Roger Bacon (1214 - 1292), not to be confused with Sir Francis Bacon who came later. Roger Bacon was a Franciscan, philosopher, and educational reformer. He receive some of his education at the university of Paris where he also lectured. Later, around 1247, he returned to England and Oxford where Grosseteste exposed him to the study of language, optics, and alchemy.
From then on, he was whole hog into these new studies. He also began studies in astronomy and mathematics. A bit like da Vinci he went deeply into theoretical science, proposing things like flying machines and motorized carriages. Remember this was more than five centuries before James Watt patented the steam engine. The internal combustion engine came even later. He also acquired so called secret books on instrument design and construction.
He was an ardent advocate of experimentation as a source of knowledge, eschewing rational deduction. His greatest contribution to progress was probably his insistence on research and on the methods thereof. He did experiments in light and lenses and developed the camera obscura, the predecessor of our modern cameras. He described, but did not build, eye spectacles and a hot air balloon. He also wrote a very exact treatise on the manufacture of gun powder.
Later Bacon entered the Order of Friars Minor. He was as vociferous as ever and he annoyed his superiors because of it. Of course, their answer was severe discipline. Bacon was not a man to just submit. He appealed to the big guy, Pope Clement IV. In 1266 he sent letters to the pope arguing that experimental knowledge of the world would help to verify the Christian faith. He though, so he said, that experimental knowledge would contribute to the welfare of the church and its universities. He even went into some specifics of what he was proposing. The pope called his play and demanded to see his work which was to be submitted in secrecy.
Well, it turned out that Bacon had merely been proposing these studies, not actually writing them. There was no treatise of science to send. Most people would probably feel a bit pressured by this. Bacon, instead, just went to work and by 1267 had finished his Opus major, his Opus minor, and his Opus tertium. It was made more difficult by the fact that he had to keep it secret from his local superiors. Of course, they guessed he was up to something and they put a lot of pressure on him. No matter, he did the works anyway and sent them off to the pope. Then, bad luck scuttled his dreams of putting science on the curriculum. Clement kicked the bucked in 1268 and Bacon was back to square one.
Not deterred, he kept on proposing and writing. He wrote parts
of several other scientific proposals and studies. His persistence
piqued his superiors and they finally condemned him to prison
somewhere around 1278. He was suspected of novelties in his teaching.
Of course, "suspected novelties" is officialese for,
"we got no case, but we don't like you." The record
is not clear, but the best guess is he spent the rest of his life
in prison, but adamant as ever. Along the way, he pretty much
made the case for including science in religious studies.
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