The 13th-century friar Roger Bacon has a good claim to be known as the West’s first true scientist. Born in 1219, he was passionately interested in the natural world and how things worked. In this age of religious intolerance and superstition he was banned from writing on such dangerous topics by his Order, and it was only when a new Pope proved sympathetic that he began his encyclopedia of knowledge, on everything from optics to alchemy. Sadly the enlightened Pope died before he could read it; and Bacon was tried as a magician and incarcerated for 10 years. After his death, legend transformed Bacon into a mythical sorcerer “Doctor Mirabilis”, but we recognize that his books were the first flowering of the scientific knowledge that would transform our world. This work is both a biography and a picture of the times – an intellectual map of the medieval world in which advances were made and controversies flourished.
Editorial Reviews
Review
The author’s talent for giving the reader an almost tangible feeling for the atmosphere of 13th Century Europe in general and of England in particular was marvellous… — Professor Heinz Wolff
From the Author
I first came across Roger Bacon when writing Light Years, my earlier book on humanitys fascination with light. I was amazed that a man with such a remarkable story was often forgotten or confused with the Elizabethan Francis Bacon.
Roger Bacon’s life was a rollercoaster of triumph and disaster, risking all for knowledge. What shines through is his delight in what would become science. His was an amazing period with pinpoints of fact beginning to shine through the clouds of mysticism, and Bacon was determined that experiment should be put alongside the revered wisdom of the ancients to clarify what was truth and what was myth.
Finding the real Roger Bacon meant exploring the life of a student in the thirteenth century riotous, dangerous and exciting alongside the more subtle, but equally dangerous, struggles for power in the new Franciscan order he was to join.
I hope that you will find the mix of Rogers story and the insight his writing gives us into medieval science as exciting as I did when researching this book.
About the Author
Brian Clegg read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, after which he spent a year doing a second MA in Operational Research. He pioneered the use of computers at British Airways, and later set up the Emerging Technologies Group, researching and trialling technologies such as fingerprint recognition and electronic cash. He now runs a creative consultancy and contributes to many publications. His most recent book is Light Years: An Exploration of Mankind’s Enduring Fascination with Light.
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