ROGER BACON ON GERMAN LUST OF DOMINATION. [TO TBX EDITOR
Or THE " SPECTATOR."] Sia,—.4 propos the recent appeal to the Prussian House of the Order of St. John -of Jerusalem and the comment of an evening paper that it was wrong to treat the Prussians as if they were true members of an order of chivalry, the following quotation is worth reprinting. It is the translation given by A. G. Little in his Studies in English Franciscan History (1917), n. 211, of a paragraph from the Opus Maims. of Roger Bacon, written about seven centu- ries ago. It shows that the Prussian resembles the Biblical leopard. After urging that the infidels should he converted by preaching to them in their own language rather than by killing them, Bacon says:— " Hence the Saracens and pagans in many parts of the world are becoming quite impossible to convert; and especially beyond the eea,, and in Prussia and the lands bordering on Germany, because the brethren of the German House [i.e., Teutonic knights] ruin all hopes of converting them owing to the wars which they are always stirring up, and because of their lust of domination. There is no doubt that all the heathen nations beyond Germany would long ago have been converted but for the brutality of the brethren of the German house, because the pagan race has again and again been ready to receive the faith in peace through preaching. But they of the German House will not allow it, because they want to subjugate them and reduce them to slavery, and by subtle persua- sions they have for many years deceived the Roman Church. This is notorious, otherwise I would not make the charge."
—I am, Sir, &C., FRANCES Roos-Tama,.
West Hill, Harrow-on-the-Hill.
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