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had received the title of Admirable Doctor, died about 1294, almost forgotten 

 by the men of that generation, ' without having been able to realise that 

 regeneration of the scientific school which he had made the object of his 

 life. It should be added, however, that he had become a dupe to the Arabism 

 of Albumazar and the Aristotelism of Averroes, and that he acquiesced in all 

 the wild conceptions of astrology and alchemy. 



The Oxford school, to which the illustrious Roger Bacon belonged, 

 appears to have been the cradle of English scepticism, which, after a long and 

 sullen opposition to the teaching of the Catholic dogma, finally terminated 

 in the most uncompromising heresy. The contemporaries of Bacon were all 

 more or less of sceptics. John Basingstoke, who became Archdeacon of 

 London and of Leicester, where he died in 1252, entered upon scholasticism 

 with much mistrust and doubt. He made a journey into Greece, to give the 

 agitation excited by his works upon the Bible, time to cool down, and there 

 devoted himself to the study of 'the exact sciences, and brought back to 

 England the figures and ciphers which the Greeks used to signify numerals. 

 Another pupil of the Oxford school, John of Holywood, called Sacrobosco, 

 had already a reputation as astronomer or cosmographist when he came to 

 study at the University of Paris, where he afterwards taught mathematics 

 with great success. He composed a treatise on the Celestial Globe (" De Sphaera 

 Mundi "), which was an imitation and abridgment of Ptolemy's book, and 

 which continued to be a classic work in all the schools of Europe for more 

 than three centuries. He also left a work considered to be of great value 

 upon the Reckoning of Time (" De Anni Ratione "), a treatise upon Astrolabe, 

 and another on Algorithms. Like most mathematicians of his day, he also 

 sought to predict the future and to draw horoscopes. 



The school of Canterbury, less impulsive than that of Oxford, pursued 

 very steadily the study of the exact sciences under the superintendence of 

 eminent prelates, amongst whom may be mentioned Thomas Bradwardin, 

 Archbishop of Canterbury, surnamed the Profound Doctor, and Richard 

 Walinford, Abbot of St. Albans, who were the first mathematicians of the 

 fourteenth century. Denmark, at the same period, was rejoicing in the 

 discoveries of a learned astronomer, De Duco, author of a new Ecclesiastical 

 Computation and of a valuable treatise upon the Calendar. 



All the greatest astronomical discoveries were effected in the East, m 

 Persia, Arabia, and even in the provinces of Lebanon. Nassir-Eddin, a 



