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Roger Bacon on the Science of Music and Preaching

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Roger Bacon on the Science of Music and Preaching CHAPTER SIX ROGER BACON ON THE SCIENCE OF MUSIC AND PREACHING Roger Bacon’s scholarly achievements have long been recognized for their significant contribution to the history of science. Camille Bérubé consid- ers Bacon the most immediate successor to the science of Robert Grosseteste and his protégé Adam Marsh.1 What distinguishes Bacon, though, appears to be his desire to show how science could inform theol- ogy and support the missions of the Roman church. Roger Bacon seems to have inherited Grosseteste’s fascination with the science of sound, and also his appreciation for music’s complex relationship with the arts and moral and natural philosophy, but he was also able to show how this knowledge applied to singing and preaching—two of the essential mis- sions of his Order. In reading Bacon’s works, one is struck by the sweep of his knowledge of ancient learning, and how this relates to fundamental principles regarding the divine origin of science and the unity of wisdom.2 On the basis of his research, he hoped to persuade Pope Clement IV of the need for curricular reform at the medieval university, with the aim of stemming what he perceived was the decline of intellectual achievement among the Latins. His remedy was to urge his reader to embrace the new Aristotelian learning, to study languages, to raise the standard for the study of the lib- eral arts (especially mathematics, where music plays an essential role), and to cede place to controversial methods of experimental science and empirical observation. He remains clear that the purpose of such learning would be to advance the study of theology and to ensure the security of the Roman church; nevertheless, Bacon’s research brought him into con- flict with superiors in his Order. The complex dynamics surrounding Bacon’s scientific achievements seriously complicated the reception of his work in his time and thereafter. Scholars and other readers after Bacon’s death became so compelled (and distracted) by the story of his conflict that interpretations of his writings sometimes became distorted and rather fanciful. Amanda Power tells of 1 Camille Bérubé, De la philosophie a la sagesse chez Saint Bonaventure et Roger Bacon (Rome: Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, 1976), 69. 2 Ibid. 130 chapter six how his critics pursued a remarkably secularizing agenda, and embel- lished Bacon’s accomplishments with such imaginative detail that his biography took on the proportions of an English folk hero, on par with the likes of Robin Hood. In her view, Roger Bacon had become a comic figure of English literature, divorced from the true facts of his life.3 On the other hand, Jeremiah Hackett gives us a more positive view of Bacon’s reputation as a scholar, emphasizing particularly the reception of his medical writings and his pioneering work on optics.4 It appears the transmission of Bacon’s Perspectiva to the “Age of Descartes” resulted, in part, from the early editorial work of Bacon’s contemporary Pierre de Limoges.5 Moreover, the large number of publications of Bacon’s alchemi- cal and astrological writings between roughly 1500 and 1700, both in Latin and several vernacular languages, seems to reflect a largely positive atti- tude toward him.6 Editions of Bacon’s Opus maius by Samuel Jebb (1733) and John Henry Bridges (1897 and 1900), and his Opus minus and Opus tertium by J.S. Brewer (1859) made his three major works widely available to modern scholars.7 But by the second decade of the twentieth century, Lynn Thorndike would still have cause to complain that Bacon had for so long been studied as an exceptional figure of his era that readers had lost the capacity to judge his objectives in the proper historical context.8 Following Thorndike’s recommendations, scholars of recent decades have managed to remedy some of the problems of Bacon’s perceived 3 Amanda Power, “A Mirror for Every Age: The Reputation of Roger Bacon,” English Historical Review 121, no. 492 (2006): 657–92; see especially 662–3. 4 Jeremiah Hackett, “The Reception of Roger Bacon in the 13th Century and in the Early Modern Period,” in Lumière et vision dans les sciences et dans les arts: de l’antiquité au XVIIe siècle, ed. Michel Hochmann and Danielle Jacquart, École Pratique des Hautes Études 5, Hautes études médiévales et modernes 97 (Geneva: Droz, 2010), 149–50. See also Faye Getz, “Roger Bacon and Medicine: The Paradox of the Forbidden Fruit and the Secrets of Long Life,” in Roger Bacon and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays, ed. Jeremiah Hackett (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 337–64. 5 Hackett, “The Reception of Roger Bacon,” 155–62. 6 Ibid., 152–3. Hackett points out that the Rosicrucians in Germany were intimately involved in the propagation of Bacon’s writing in the early seventeenth century (ibid., 152). 7 Roger Bacon, Fratris Rogeri Bacon, Ordinis minorum, Opus Maius ad Clementem Quartum, Pontificem Romanum. Ex MS. Codice Dubliniensi, cum aliis quibusdam collato, nunc primum edidit, S. Jebb (1733). Roger Bacon, The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon, 3 vols., ed. John Henry Bridges (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897 and 1900). Roger Bacon, Fr. Rogeri Bacon, Opera Quaedam Hactenus Inedita, vol. 1, I.—Opus Tertium, II.—Opus Minus, III.— Compendium Philosophiae, ed. J.S. Brewer (London: Longman, 1859; repr. London: Kraus, 1965). 8 Lynn Thorndike, “The True Roger Bacon, I,” The American Historical Review 21, no. 2 (Jan., 1916), 237..
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