Formerly the Church with its prelates of old time, was golden in wisdom, silver in cleanness of life, brazen in eloquence, which are three things needful to a preacher; that is, brightness of wisdom, cleanness of life, and sonorousness of eloquence. But of the feet, the last, that is the modern prelates, part is iron through their hardness of heart, and part is clay by their carnal luxury.
Archbishop of Canterbury
John Peckham (or Pecham) (c. 1230 – 1292) was a native of Sussex who was educated at Lewes Priory and became a Franciscan friar about 1250. He studied under Bonaventure at the University of Paris and became regent master (official lecturer) in theology. He was a conservative theologian who debated Thomas Aquinas with some success. He also taught at Oxford University and then traveled to Rome via France, to study law. In Rome he received a papal appointment to the position of Lector Sacri Palatii (theological lecturer) in the papal palace schools, where his lectures were attended by large audiences, including many bishops and cardinals. After one or two years in Rome, he was appointed by Pope Nicholas III as Archbishop of Canterbury (1279–1292), where he became known as one of the three earliest champions of English clerical reform. Peckham's views on experimental science were guided by Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon. His work on optics, Perspectiva Communis, was a standard reference through the seventeenth-century. In it, he describes experiments and expounds upon a variety of topics including reflection, concave mirrors, eye anatomy and theories of vision, refraction and theories of the rainbow. He also produced works on mathematics and natural philosophy, to include discussions on astronomy, astrology and cosmology.
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Among all the studies of natural causes and reasons, light most delights the contemplators; among the great things of mathematics, the certainty of its demonstrations most illustriously elevates the minds of its investigators; perspective must therefore be preferred to all human discourses and disciplines, in the study in which radiant lines are expounded by means of demonstrations and in which the glory is found not only of mathematics, but also physics: it is adorned with the flowers of one and the other.
Light from a concave luminous body is received most powerfully at the centre. The reason for this is that, for every point of a concave body, perpendicular rays, which are stronger than others, converge in the centre. Therefore the virtues of celestial bodies are incident most powerfully in and near the centre of the world.
And therefore, Sire, altho' I am ready, so far as is in me, to dedicate the place for the Cistercian monks at Meynan, yet I could not do it without the full assent of the bishop and of his chapter, and of the parson of the place, who, with plenty of other people, have a very great horror of the approach of the forsaid monks. For though they may be good men, if God please, still they are the hardest neighbours that prelates and parsons could have. For where they plant their foot, they destroy towns, take away tithes, and curtail by their privileges all the power of prelacy.