‘I chose a youth whom for five or six years I have had instructed in languages and mathematics and optics, in which is all the difficulty of what I send; and I instructed him gratis with my own mouth after I received your command, feeling that I could not at present have another messenger after my own heart.’
There was no one at Paris who knew so much of the roots of philosophy as did juvenis Johannes; he was ‘a virgin, not knowing mortal sin,’ and ‘an excellent keeper of secrets[1367].’ John was sent to Clement with the Opus Majus and other treatises[1368] in 1267, the other works, Opus Minus and Opus Tertium, being sent later and probably by other messengers. From this time we have no authentic information about him, and do not know whether he fulfilled Bacon’s expectations:
‘he has that which will enable him to surpass all the Latins, if he lives to old age and builds on the foundations which he has[1369].’
Robert de Ware, in Hertfordshire[1370], entered the Order at Oxford between 1265 and 1268. In the prologue of his only extant work, addressed to his younger brother John, he gives the following account of his conversion[1371]:—
I was the eldest son of my father; at a tender age, tenderly beloved, I was designed for a life of study. At length I came to Oxford, and then I entered the Order of Friars Minors. At this my father was exceedingly grieved, and did all in his power to force me to leave the Order, sending my mother and brother and relatives and other friends to me, with intreaties and promises; and, I am told, with the help of some powerful persons, he made every exertion to secure my liberation in the court of Ottobon, who was then acting as legate in England[1372]. At length finding himself thwarted because I would not give my consent, he became so embittered against me that he absolutely refused to see me or speak with me, nor could any of my friends pacify him. One day even, when I had come to his gates with my companion-friar, and wished to enter, he refused me admittance by his servants, drew his sword, and swore with a mighty oath that he would kill me if I presumed to enter.
At length the father was stricken down by a mortal disease, and, warned in a vision, he relented towards his son. The latter was summoned hastily from London, and reconciled to his father, who before his death gave proof of his devotion to the Order of St. Francis.
Twenty-five discourses on the Virgin Mary, by friar Robert de Ware. Inc. prol. “Aue rosarium scripturarum per areolas.”
MS. London:—Gray’s Inn, 7, f. 62-138: (sec. xiii). No title; the name of the author is given in a hand of the fourteenth century.
Walter de Landen, William Cornish, William de Wykham, Dyonisius, and Robert de Cap(e)ll, were Franciscans at Oxford, and took part in the controversy with the Dominicans in 1269. All that is known about them will be found in Appendix C.
Nicholas de Gulac was at Oxford in 1269. Suffering from stone and despairing of life, he at length prayed the Lord