Impossible as it seems, intellectual life grew and expanded in this
tumultuous atmosphere; and while the democratic spirit of the
University threatened the king, its spirit of free intellectual inquiry
shook the Church.

The revival of classical learning, bringing streams of thought from old
Greek and Latin fountains, caused a sudden expansion. It was like the
discovery of an unsuspected and greater world, with a body of new
truth, which threw the old into contemptuous disuse. A spirit of doubt,
scepticism, and denial, was engendered. They comprehended now why
Abelard had claimed the "supremacy of reason over faith," and why
Italian poets smiled at dreams of "immortality." Then, too, the new
culture compelled respect for infidel and for Jew. Was it not from
their impious hands, that this new knowledge of the physical universe
had been received?

[Sidenote: Roger Bacon Writes Opus Majus.]

Roger Bacon drank deeply from these fountains, new and old, and
struggled like a giant to illumine the darkness of his time, by
systematizing all existing knowledge. His "Opus Majus" was intended to
bring these riches to the unlearned. But he died uncomprehended, and it
was reserved for later ages to give recognition to his stupendous work,
wrought in the twilight out of dimly comprehended truth.

Pursued by the dream of recovering the French Empire, lost by his
father, and of retracting the promises given in the Charter, Henry III.
spent his entire reign in conflict with the barons and the people, who
were closely drawn together by the common danger and rallied to the
defence of their liberties under the leadership of Simon de Montfort.