Still, the jurymen, [Footnote: On Thomas a Becket's last journey to Canterbury, Raoul de Broc's followers had cut off the tails of his pack-horses. It was a vulgar reproach to the men of Kent that the outrage had been punished by the growth of the same appendage on the whole of the inhabitants of the county; and, whereas the English populace applied the accusation to the Kentishmen, foreigners extended it to the whole nation when in a humor for insult and abuse, such as that of this unhappy prince.] who were as much witnesses as what we now call jurors, were often liable to be beaten and maltreated in revenge, and officers, called "justices of _trailebaston"_ were sent to search out the like offences, which they did with success and good-will; and in, order that speedy justice might be done in cases of minor importance, local magistrates were appointed, the commencement of our present justices of the peace. They were at first chosen by the votes of the freeholders, but in Edward III.'s time began to be nominated by the Crown.
Robert Burnel, the Chancellor, Bishop of Bath and Wells, probably had a great share in these enactments. He was a better Chancellor than Bishop, but he left to his see the beautiful episcopal palace still in existence at Wells. He also built a splendid castle at his native place, Acton Burnel, where some of the early Parliaments were held.
These Parliaments were only summoned by Edward I. when in great want of money, for in general he raised the needful sums by gifts and talliages, and only in cases of unusual pressure did he call on his subjects for further aid. Four knights were chosen from each shire, and two burgesses [Footnote: For a lively picture of a trial of the thirteenth century, see Sir F. Palgrave's "Merchant and Friar."] from every town, of consequence; and, besides, bishops and the barons, who had their seats by their rank; but the two houses were not always divided:-except, indeed, that sometimes the Northern representatives met at York, the Southern at Northampton, and the county palatine of Durham had a little parliament to itself. Serving in Parliament was expensive and unpopular, and the sheriff of the county had not only to preside over the election of the member, but to send him safe to the place of meeting; and often the Commons broke up as soon as they had granted the required sum, leaving the Lords to deliberate on the laws, or to bring grievances before the King, such things being quite beyond their reach.
It was a time of great prosperity to the whole country, and such internal tranquillity had scarcely prevailed since the time of Henry II., when the difference between Saxon and Norman was far less smoothed down than at present, and the feudal system weighed far more heavily.
Splendid castles were built, the King setting the example, and making more arrangements for comfort in the interior than had yet been ventured upon; and sacred architecture came to the highest perfection it has ever attained.
Wherever we find a portion of our cathedrals with deep mouldings in massive walls, slender columns of darker marble standing detached from freestone piers, sharply-pointed arches, capitals of rich foliage folding over the hollow formed by their curve, and windows either narrow lancet, or with the flowing lines of flamboyant tracery, there we are certain to hear that this part was added in the thirteenth century.
Edward gave liberally to the Church, especially to the order of Dominican, or Preaching Friars; but it was found that in some instances the clergy had worked on men's consciences to obtain from them the bequest of lands to the injury of their heirs, and a statute was therefore passed to prevent such legacies from being valid unless they received the sanction of the Crown. This was called the Statute of _Mortmain_, or Dead Hands, because the framers of the act considered the hands of the monastic orders as dead and unprofitable.
Even the world itself could hardly award the meed of unprofitable to the studies of Roger Bacon, a native of Ilchester, born in 1214, who, after studying at Oxford and at Paris, became a member of the Franciscan, or Minorite Friars, and settled again at Oxford, where he pursued his studies under the patronage of Bishop Robert Grostete. He made himself a perfect master of Greek in order to understand Aristotle in the original, and working on by himself he proceeded far beyond any chemist of his time in discoveries in natural philosophy. Grostete and the more enlightened men of the university provided him with means to carry on his experiments, and, in twenty years he had expended no less than L2,000: but not without mighty results; for he ascertained the true length of the solar year, made many useful discoveries in chemistry and medicine, and anticipated many of the modern uses of glass, learning the powers of convex and concave lenses for the telescope, microscope, burning-glasses, and the camera obscura.
Above all, he was the inventor of gunpowder, the compound which was destined to change the whole character of warfare and the destiny of nations. But he was too much in advance of his time to be understood, and the friars of his order, becoming terrified by his experiments, decided that he was a magician, and after the death of his friend Grostete, kept him in close confinement, and only permitted one copy of his works to pass out of the monastery, and this, which was sent to the Pope, Clement IV., procured his liberation. A few years after, the General of the Franciscans, again taking fright, imprisoned him once more, and this lasted eleven or twelve years; but Pope Nicholas IV. again released him, and neither age nor imprisonment could break down his energy; he continued steadily to pursue his discoveries, and add a further polish to his various works, till his death, in 1292. Little as he was appreciated, he left a strong impression on the popular mind.
Tradition declares that he constructed a huge head of brass, which uttered the words, "Time is! Time was! Time will be!" and has connected this with Brazen-Nose College, which, not having been founded till one hundred years after, must in that case, as Fuller says, make time to be again.
He is a hero of the popular chap-books of old times, where he and his associate, Friar Bungay, are represented as playing tricks on his servant Miles, and as summoning the spirits of Julius Caesar and Hercules for the edification of the kings of France and England, from whom, however, he would accept no reward. Legends vary between his being flown away with bodily by demons, and his making a grand repentance, when he confessed that knowledge had been a heavy burden, that kept down good thoughts, burnt his books, parted with his goods, and caused himself to be walled up in a cell in the church and fed through a hole, and finally dug his grave with his own nails! Thus, probably, has ignorant tradition perverted the sense that coming death would surely bring, that earthly knowledge is but vanity.
Still worse has fared his friend, Michael Scott of Balwirie, called by the learned the Mathematician, by the unlearned, the Wizard. After the usual course of university learning at Oxford and Paris, he went to Italy, where he gained the patronage of the Emperor Friedrich II. He was learned in Greek and in Arabic, and an excellent mathematician, but he bewildered himself with alchemy and astrology; and, though he died unmolested in his own country, in 1290 his fame remained in no good odor. Dante describes him among those whose faces were turned backward, because they had refused to turn the right way: