Eustache, sold for two hundred
livres. This sum was thought large, being estimated as equal to 16,400
francs at present. Sixty livres were then about five thousand francs, or
a thousand dollars. Lodgings at this period varied from 5 to 17 livres
the year. An ox was worth 1 livre 10 sols; a sheep, 6 sols 3 deniers.
Bacon must at some period of his life have possessed money, for we find
him speaking of having expended two thousand livres in the pursuit of
learning. If the comparative value assumed be correct, this sum
represented between $30,000 and $40,000 of our currency.]
[Footnote 15: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. iii. pp. 15-17.]
[Footnote 16: _Opus Tertium_. Cap. xx. p. 65.]
[Footnote 17: _Opus Tertium_. Capp. xvi., xvii. Roger Bacon's urgency to
the Pope to promote the works for the advancement of knowledge which
were too great for private efforts bears a striking resemblance to the
words addressed for the same end by his great successor, Lord Bacon, to
James I. "Et ideo patet," says the Bacon of the thirteenth century,
"quod scripta, principalia de sapientia philosophiae non possunt fieri
ab uno homine, nec a pluribus, nisi manus praelatorum et principum
juvent sapientes cum magna virtute.
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