Roger Bacon (1214-1294) was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods. He is sometimes credited as one of the earliest European advocates of the modern scientific method inspired by Aristotle and later Arabic scholars such as the Muslim scientist Alhazen. He studied at Oxford and may have been a disciple of Grosseteste. He became a master at Oxford, lecturing on Aristotle. Between 1237 and 1245, he began lecturing at the University of Paris, then the centre of European intellectual life. In 1256 he became a friar in the Franciscan Order, and no longer held a teaching post. After 1260, his activities were restricted by a Franciscan statute prohibiting friars from publishing books or pamphlets without prior approval. circumvented this through his acquaintance with Cardinal Guy le Gros de Foulques, who became Pope Clement IV in 1265. Clement IV issued a mandate ordering