The Life & Work of Roger Bacon

Grosseteste was a rector scholarum head of schools and also Chancellor of Oxford, and in 1224 he was the rector of the Franciscans recently established there. The terms in which Bacon testifies to his encouragement of philology, his attempts to apply mathematical methods to the study of physical phenomena, and his disregard for the academic philosophy of the time—which was founded on poor translations of Aristotle (Compendium Studii Philosophiae, Brewer, ch. 8)—would be conclusive regarding his personal contact with this great man, even if it were not confirmed by references to Grosseteste's scientific writings, in which Bacon's debt to him is unmistakable. His treatise De Physicis Lineis, Angulis, et Figuris On Physical Lines, Angles, and Figures contains passages regarding the spherical radiation of force and the change in its direction through reflection and refraction, which bear a close resemblance to the language used many years afterward by Bacon. See Note A (Robert Grosseteste) on p. 146.

It would appear that, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, there was a stronger impulse toward scientific study in Oxford than in Paris. In the eleventh chapter of the Opus Tertium, when speaking of the science of Optics, Bacon observes, “On this science no lectures have as yet been given in Paris, nor anywhere among the Latins, except twice at Oxford.” It is not stated that the...