Roger Bacon

The necessity of clearly defining the doctrines of the Church tended to make its teaching dogmatic.

Originality and research were discouraged, and men like Roger Bacon, who dared to think and experiment for themselves, felt the weight of ecclesiastical displeasure.

In the Middle Ages, nevertheless, the mind of man was remarkably active, and having little new material on which to work, it was compelled to exercise its ingenuity in endless arguments on abstract and often unimportant questions, working upon itself, as Bacon says, as the spider worketh its web, bringing forth cobwebs of learning, admirable for its fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit.

The ascetic ideal of the Middle Ages is well described by John Addington Simmons.

And the act of, um...

So there's a certain way of cultivating or where linguistic study, this is Roger Bacon's argument from the 13th century, careful, slow linguistic study is its own school of virtue.

Um, so when he was talking about an- well, what we would just call ancient languages with Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and so on, um, his category for this was wisdom languages, and I think part of that is because you're l- you're r- trying to relate to them as a creature that is inclined either to virtue or vice.

So studying those ancient languages is meant to be hard, is meant to be slow, and trying to read texts for yourself that are written in those languages is meant to be, in one sense, both affirming and alienating.

So, um, we just do live in a very utilitarian, monolingual society, and I think Christianity does...

Well, Christianity like pushes a sort of, a sort of filters into that in a few different ways.

Um, and maybe the way that it filters in through me is to maybe stand a bit like a Roger Bacon figure, um, in the Middle Ages, just to say, like, what does this do to us? And, um, it's not a question a lot of people are asking, but if I've, if, if the fruit of my pieces, uh, some people shift from group, uh, one to group two, then-

That's success

The latter date is fixed by the death of Albertus Magnus, who in his book De Mirabilis Mundi from internal evidence is obviously plagiarizing the Liber Ignium.

Friar Roger Bacon, twelve fourteen to ninety-four, in two of his works refers at least twice to compositions containing saltpeter, powdered charcoal, and sulfur.

In one place he refers to fires that shall burn at what distance we please.

In other two, thunder and coruscations, which references seem to suggest that he is describing something of a pyrotechnic nature rather than the simple effect of gunpowder.

We will consider this class first.

The two oldest forms of fireworks known are undoubtedly the cracker and the rocket.

As we have already noted, both of these, or at least primitive forms, are mentioned by Marcus Graecus, Albertus, and Roger Bacon.

The description by the former is sufficiently clear to leave no doubt in our minds that he is describing a rocket.

Don't talk about lack of initiative in the Middle Ages.

Frederick Harrison said, Of all the epochs of effort after a new life, that of the age of Aquinas, Roger Bacon, St. Francis, St. Louis, Giotto, and Dante is the most purely spiritual, the most really constructive, and indeed the most truly philosophic.

Don't forget that in recent years there has been serious discussion as to whether the thirteenth century may not have been the greatest century of human existence.

Don't scoff at the idea of a medieval century as the greatest until you have weighed Frederick Harrison's expression.