the three great forces which energized those times and built up and maintained the mighty fabric of medieval Christendom. The University of Paris, the first school of the Church, with its four Nations, possessed something of the international character of 'the Church.[1] "It may with truth be said that in the history of human things there is to be found no grander conception than that of the Church in the fifteenth century, when it resolved, in the shape of the universities, to cast the light of knowledge abroad over the Christian world."[2] These are the testimonies of Protestant historians.
As the Benedictines in the earlier ages had been the most zealous educators, so, from the twelfth century on, the friars or mendicants took the most prominent part in university education. The greatest professors in philosophy and theology were friars; to the order of St. Francis belonged Alexander of Hales, St. Bonaventure, Roger Bacon, and Duns Scotus. The last mentioned was one of the profoundest and most original thinkers that the world has ever seen, and deservedly was styled the Doctor subtilis. Blessed Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas, "the Angelic Doctor and Prince of the Schools," were Dominicans. Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon were far in advance of their time in the knowledge of mathematics and natural sciences. Mr. Rashdall compares Roger Bacon with his great namesake, Francis
