[430] Leland, Collect. Vol. III, p. 60. Cf. Wood-Clark, II, 381-2. Leland mentions only one library; but he probably saw all that was to be seen.
[431] Brewer, Mon. Francisc. I, p. li. See the rest of his luminous remarks there, and in his preface to R. Bacon, Opera Inedita.
[432] Opera Ined. pp. 19-20, Opus Tertium.
[433] Cf. Ibid. p. 116, on the potential value of burning-glasses in the Crusades.
[434] Ibid. 53. Cf. p. 50, ethical part of moral philosophy: ‘et haec est pulchrior sapientia quam possit dici.’
[435] e.g. Opus Majus, 46; Opus Tert. pp. 3-4, 10-11, 40, 48, 84; Opus Minus, 323; Compend. Studii, 395, 397, 400 sqq., &c.
[436] Twyne, MS. II, fol. 23, from Register of D’Alderby, bishop of Lincoln; printed in Wood, Hist, et Antiq. (Lat. ed.), p. 134, and in Wood-Clark, II, p. 386. It may seem bold to identify ‘Johannes Douns’ with the great schoolman, but there is no doubt he was a young friar at Oxford at the time (he lectured at Oxford c. 1304); and he is in company with many other prominent schoolmen of the time.
[437] Two of them were already D.D.’s.
[438] Opera Inedita, p. lvi. Cf. Sir Francis Bacon: ‘non accipit indoctus verba scientiae, nisi prius ea dixeris quae versantur in corde ejus.’
[439] Mon. Francisc. I, li. See ‘Les contes moralisés’ of Friar Nicholas Bozon. Wiclif is less complimentary to Friars’ sermons: they are ‘japes’ pleasing to the people, and ‘rimes’; Select Works, III, 180. The old school of theologians, secular and monastic, and the clergy disliked them intensely.