' Even Roger
Bacon, when he joined the Friars, was forbidden to retain his books and
instruments, and was not allowed to touch ink or parchment without a
special licence from the Pope. We may quote one or two of the anecdotes
about the Saint. A brother was arguing with him on the text 'Take nothing
with you on the way,' and asked if it meant 'absolutely nothing';
'Nothing,' said the Saint, 'except the frock allowed by our rule, and, if
indispensable, a pair of shoes.' 'What am I to do?' said the brother: 'I
have books of my own,' naming a value of many pounds of silver. 'I will
not, I ought not, I cannot allow it,' was the reply. A novice applied to
St. Francis for leave to possess a psalter: but the Saint said, 'When
you have got a psalter, then you'll want a breviary, and when you have
got a breviary you will sit in a chair as great as a lord, and will say
to some brother, Friar! go and fetch me my breviary!' And he laid ashes
on his head, and repeated, 'I am your breviary! I am your breviary!' till
the novice was dumbfounded and amazed; and then again the Saint said that
he also had once been tempted to possess books, and he almost yielded to
the request, but decided in the end that such yielding would be sinful.
He hoped that the day would come when men would throw their books out of
the window as rubbish.
A curious change took place when the Mendicants got control of the
schools. It was absolutely necessary that they should be the devourers of
books if they were to become the monopolists of learning.
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