The Life & Work of Roger Bacon

Instructions to him to transmit the results of his labors were issued June 22, 1266, from Viterbo. Within the year that followed, the Opus Majus, with its supplement, the Opus Minus, and its introduction, the Opus Tertium, had been completed and sent to the Pope. At this time he speaks of himself as an old man, and he says that he had been studying language, science, and philosophy for nearly forty years (Op. Tert., ch. 20). From this it may be supposed that he was born between 1210 and 1215. However, the place of his birth cannot be said to be fixed with certainty.

One, and only one, notice of his name occurs in a contemporary writer. Matthew Paris relates, under the year 1233, that Henry III convoked the counts and barons of the kingdom to a council

(pp. xi et seq.) that he entered into relations with Bacon on the occasion of his mission to England as Papal legate in 1263 or 1264. But Bacon was then in Paris, and had been there for several years. Guy Fulcodi had far better opportunities of hearing about Bacon in Paris than could have occurred during the time of his stormy and ineffectual legation to England. [‘In 1266 a letter reached Bacon from the Pope requiring him to send him a fair copy of his writings, all orders to the contrary from his superiors notwithstanding; ordering him at the same time to set down in writing what were the remedies proposed for the dangers of which he had spoken. From this letter, which is preserved in the Papal archives, where I have myself seen it, it appears that Bacon had already put himself in communication with Clement, both before and after his elevation to the Papacy.’ —E. and A., p. 177.]