However
this may have been, his death took place before the beginning of the
fourteenth century. The scientific and experimental studies which had
brought him into ill-favor with his own order, and had excited the
suspicion against him of dealing in magic and forbidden arts, seem to
have sown the seed of the popular traditions which at once took root
around his name. Friar Bacon soon became, and indeed has remained almost
to the present day, a half-mythical character. To the imagination of the
common people, he was a great necromancer; he had had dealings with the
Evil One, who had revealed many of the secrets of Nature to him; he had
made a head of brass that could speak and foretell future events; and to
him were attributed other not less wonderful inventions, which seem to
have formed a common stock for popular legends of this sort during the
Middle Ages, and to have been ascribed indiscriminately to one
philosopher or another in various countries and in various times.[9] The
references in our early literature to Friar Bacon, as one who had had
familiarity with spirits and been a master in magic arts, are so
numerous as to show that the belief in these stories was wide-spread,
and that the real character of the learned Friar was quite given over to
oblivion.
Pages:
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335