Free The Friar and the Cipher by Lawrence Goldstone Page A

church school, so anyone wishing to enroll was required to become a seminarian and shave a tonsure (a bald spot on the top of the head). Clerical status, however, did not prevent the young Oxford scholars from developing much the same relationships with the townsfolk as their counterparts in Paris. Many of the students, like the young Bacon, came from wealthy families, which did not endear them to a largely working-class populace. The tonsures made the students stand out, and they made it a point to speak to one another in Latin, incomprehensible to the locals, in effect saying, “We're better than you.” Brawls were common, and tensions between the two groups often ran high as more and more people—to say nothing of livestock—were crammed within the city's walls.
    Students roomed together to save money, and, in 1209, when one of them killed a local prostitute who was sharing his rooms, some citizens, led by the mayor, attacked and killed his two roommates in retaliation. The masters closed the university in protest and then migrated to other cities to teach—thus was Cambridge founded. Oxford stayed closed until 1214, when King John handed England over to the papacy and Innocent III issued a charter to the Oxford masters similar to the one that he had provided to the University of Paris.
    By the time Roger Bacon entered the school in about 1228, Oxford had fully recovered and probably had more than a thousand students. As had happened in Paris, many students enrolled not to pursue knowledge for its own sake but because they knew that a university degree had become a necessary stepping-stone to a career in the Church or government. “A boy of parts goes to Oxford, let us say, with the help of a bishop or abbot or local landholder, or, as happened more frequently than is generally supposed, because he belongs to a family which can support him there,” observed the Oxford historian Sir Maurice Powicke. “He makes good, and in due course incepts as master of arts. An influential teacher may open the way to a career . . . If he belongs to a well-to-do local family, the scholar's future is safe.”
    Oxford structured its arts curriculum along the same lines as Paris. It was no match in theology, but that turned out to be an advantage, since Paris, specifically because of the preeminence of its theology curriculum, remained under the close scrutiny of the pope. Not so Oxford. It was too far away and deemed not sufficiently important. As a result, by 1228, Oxford was able to deviate from generally accepted teaching principles. Not only did the school teach Aristotle, but it also placed more emphasis on mathematics and experimental science than any other university in Europe. That it did so was due almost entirely to the influence of one extraordinary man, Roger Bacon's spiritual mentor, Robert Grosseteste.
    In an age where birth was everything, Grosseteste rose from poverty so extreme that no one is even sure of his family name. He was born around 1175 in Suffolk, and he must have demonstrated remarkable ability as a child. In 1192, probably through the auspices of a church patron, he was sent to study at Oxford. He so distinguished himself there that he was recommended to the bishop of Hereford and selected to study theology in Paris, an honor reserved almost exclusively for those of high birth. Afterward, he returned to teach at Oxford, eventually rising to become chancellor. In 1235, he was named bishop of Lincoln, another unheard-of honor for a man born little more than a serf, but he continued to oversee Oxford, which lay within his diocese.
    Grosseteste was not simply a scholar and a cleric. He was the most influential English clergyman of his time. His passion for his office, and the high standards he tried to implement, reverberated throughout the country. When Bacon came to Oxford in 1228, Grosseteste had just taken on the additional role as advisor to the Friars Minor. Although he never joined the Franciscans