The Greater Work (Opus Majus), Vol. 1

temporary writer. Matthew Paris A celebrated English Benedictine monk and chronicler (c. 1200–1259) who recorded the history of the 13th century. relates, under the year 1233, that Henry III convoked the counts and barons of the kingdom to a council at Oxford. Their animosity against Pierre des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, the king’s chief adviser, who had surrounded his person with a body-guard of Poitevins People from Poitou, France; their influence at the English court was deeply resented by the English nobility. and filled England with these foreigners, led them to refuse the summons. While the king was debating what measures to take against the recalcitrant barons, a Dominican preacher, Robert Bacon by name, told him frankly that there would be no hope of permanent peace in the kingdom so long as the Bishop of Winchester and his son, or kinsman, Peter of Rievaulx, retained power. Robert Bacon’s opinion was echoed by others, and the king was induced to listen to it patiently. ‘Then a certain clerk who was present at the Court, Roger Bacon by name, a man of mirthful speech, said with pleasant yet pointed wit, “My lord king, what is that which is most hurtful and fearful to those that sail across the sea?” “Those know it,” the king replied, “who have much experience of the waters.” “My lord,” said the clerk, “I will tell you; stones and rocks”; meaning thereby Pierre des Roches.’ This is a clever pun on the name Pierre des Roches: in French and Latin, 'Pierre' means stone and 'Roches' means rocks. Roger was suggesting that the Bishop was the "rock" upon which the state might be wrecked. It has been thought that the date of the dialogue was too early to refer to the Roger Bacon with whom we are here concerned. But since he might well be more than twenty years old at the time, the doubt seems hardly founded.

What is certain from Bacon’s own statement is that his family was one of some wealth, since he himself had been able to spend much money on experimental research. It appears also that this family had taken the royal side throughout the disputes between Henry and his barons, and had suffered pecuniary loss and exile for their loyalty. He tells Pope Clement that, being in sore distress for the money necessary for the transcription and conveyance of his manuscripts original: "MSS.",

‘I wrote to my brother, a rich man in my country. But he, belonging as he did to the king’s party, was in exile with my mother, brothers, and the whole family. Ruined and reduced to utter poverty, he was unable to help me, and up to the present day he has sent me no reply.’ (The Third Work, chapter 3 original: "Op. Tert. cap. 3")

The forty years of study, of which he speaks in 1267, may