[498] Dean Plumptre (Contemp. Rev. II, p. 376 note) identifies the ‘unnamed professor at Paris,’ referred to by Roger Bacon, with Thomas Aquinas, and I am inclined to agree with this suggestion. A passage in Royal MS. 7 F. VII. f. 159 (quoted in Part II, sub Richard of Cornwall) would at first sight seem to identify the unnamed professor with Friar Ric. of Cornwall. But there is no evidence that the latter was quoted as an authority in the schools (like Aristotle, Avicenna, and Averroes) during his lifetime (Bacon, Op. Ined. p. 30), nor could the statement that ‘he never heard lectures on philosophy and was not educated at Paris or any other school where philosophy flourishes’ (ibid. 31 and 327) apply to Richard (Mon. Franc. I, 39). On the other hand, all the facts mentioned about the unnamed professor coincide with what is known of Thomas Aquinas (Quétif-Echard, I, 271). It may then be assumed with some probability that we have here Bacon’s judgment on his great contemporary. ‘Truly,’ he writes, ‘I praise him more than all the crowd of students, because he is a very studious man, and has seen infinite things, and had expense; and so he has been able to collect much that is useful from the sea of authors,’ but he was fatally handicapped by not going through the regular training (Opera Ined. p. 327). His followers maintain that philosophy as published in his works is complete—that nothing further can be added. ‘These writings,’ Bacon continues, ‘have four sins: the first is infinite puerile vanity; the second is ineffable falsity; the third superfluity of volume ...; the fourth is that parts of philosophy of magnificent utility and immense beauty and without which facts of common knowledge (quae vulgata sunt) cannot be understood—concerning which I write to your glory—have been omitted by the author of these works. And therefore there is no utility in those writings, but the greatest injury to wisdom.’
[499] Mullinger, Cambridge, I, 120-1.
[500] Wood, Annals, sub anno 1276, p. 306. Peckham, Reg. III, 852, &c. Kilwardby seems to have generally supported his Order against the Franciscans: see Peckham’s letter to the Prior of the Friars Preachers at Oxford; he is amazed at the ‘cruelty and inconsideration’ of a letter of his predecessor’s, in which the latter apparently made an attack on the Minorites; Register, III, 117-118.
[501] Ibid. III, 866, 898. Wood, Annals, 318 seq.; Annales Monast. IV, 297 seq.
[502] Peckham, Reg. III, 864.
[503] Ibid. 896-901, 943.
[504] Ibid. 867.
[505] Ibid. 852, 866, 901.
[506] Peckham writes: ‘Diversity of opinion among philosophers does not dissolve friendship, but among modern vain-talkers it has passed to the affection of the heart.’ Reg. III, 900.
[507] Ibid. 845-852 (A. D. 1284).