Customer Reviews

The Friar and the Cipher: Roger Bacon and the Unsolved Mystery of the Most Unusual Manuscript in the World

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The Goldstone's last collaboration, Out of the Flames, is a great book. It concerns sixteenth century scholar Michael Servetus and his book Christianismi Restituto in which Servetus recounts his discovery of pulmonary circulation well before Harvey, the man usually credited with the discovery. In The Friar and the Cipher the Goldstone's attempt a similar look at history through the lens of important books with Roger Bacon and a book known as the Voynich manuscript.

The Voynich manuscript is a mystery. Discovered in 1912, this book has remained unfathomable for nearly a century. Not only is it a strange concoction of drawings and diagrams but it is also written in a code that has remained unbroken since its discovery despite the efforts of some of the greatest code-breakers of the twentieth century. In fact, no one is even sure who the author of the manuscript is, though one of the likeliest of authors is thirteenth century proto-scientist Roger Bacon.

This gives the authors an opportunity to test the claim by going through a history of thirteenth century scholarship. Roger Bacon, the friar of the title, is ostensibly the main subject but the Goldstone's are going for much more. We learn about the revival of Aristotle and Plato in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. We learn about the rise of the universities the new religious orders like the Dominicans and Franciscans. And we learn about many of the other great thinkers of the age like Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus as well as a host of lesser known names, if no less influential thinkers.

It is a wonderful history and fun to read but somewhat less satisfying than Out of the Flames, mainly because there is an uncertainty here that wasn't in the previous book. With Christianismi Restituto, the provenance of the remaining three manuscripts and the fact that Servetus was the author is not in doubt. Out of the Flames traced a known history and revived the reputation of a man whose name is unjustly forgotten. Roger Bacon may be no less deserving of having his name polished for modern readers; however, bringing Bacon to life through this manuscript is less convincing. As the authors allow, there is no proof that Bacon is the author of this manuscript. In fact, it may have been written centuries after him. And since no one knows what this book is actually about, there is no proof that the author was some sort of genius. He may have simply been very clever at creating codes and ciphers, which comes across as rather pointless if no one can even decipher the code.

Ultimately, this book is a good one with a lot of interesting history and some information about a literary mystery that still remains unsolved. That alone makes it worth reading. And if it's not the Goldstone's best, it is still excellent. And it leaves one wondering what the Goldstones are going to tackle next.

Without a doubt, this book is the most difficult to rate of any I have reviewed so far. The book is advertised as a tale of Roger Bacon and the Voynich Manuscript, both fascinating topics. But as previous reviewers have noted, the authors frequently go off on tangents, presumably in an effort to provide added context. Some of these digressions are riveting; some are distracting. I skipped several pages and even a whole chapter without losing any of the storyline. More than once I found myself asking, "How does this relate to Roger Bacon or the Voynich Manuscript?" The authors do eventually tie everything back to one of those subjects, but seldom with an economy of words.

I appreciated the conversational style the authors used in telling the story. Their flippant tone, on the other hand, made me wince. Think Thomas Cahill-type narrative without the pleasant aftertaste.

Ulimately, what soured me on this book was the apparent ax the authors have to grind with the Catholic Church and the degree to which it infected their writing. On page 42, they write that scholasticism "matured into the most powerful tool for maintaining and perpetuating doctrine that the Church had ever seen." The scholastics "remained uninterested in uncovering new knowledge, only in cementing the unlikely but now solid bond between Aristotle's logic and the Bible's revelation." That's pure, unvarnished B.S. Please compare those statements with the following:

"It is difficult to arrive at a satisfactory definition of Scholasticism that would apply to all the thinkers to whom the label has been affixed. ... The Scholastics, by and large, were committed to the use of reason as an indispensable tool in theological and philosophical study, and to dialectic ... as the method of pursuing issues of intellectual interest." (Thomas E. Woods Jr., "How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, p. 58)

"What made it possible for Western civilization to develop science and the social sciences in a way that no other civilization had ever done before? The answer, I am convinced, lies in a pervasive and deep-seated inquiry that was a natural consequence of the emphasis on reason that began in the Middle Ages. ... It was quite natural for scholars ... to probe into subject areas that had not been explored before, as well as to discuss possibilities that had not previously been entertained." (Edward Grant, "God and Reason in the Middle Ages" p. 356)

The Goldstones argue passionately that Roger Bacon got hosed and history never gave him his due. That's probably true. But their cri de coeur glosses over the fact that, slight or no slight, Roger Bacon was a monk and therefore a committed adherent to Catholicism. Also noteworthy is that Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II is glorified in this book, which stands in stark contrast to his portrayal by at least one modern biographer. In short, if you'd like an at-times-gripping detective story/biography and an introduction to a plethora of historical luminaries, cherry pick from this book. If you are committed to learning the truth, get both sides and take "The Friar and The Cipher" with a bushel of salt.

A terrific read. The authors are bibliophiles rather than cryptographers, but darn good biographers too. The subject of this book is a mysterious manuscript supposedly written in a cipher that has eluded all attempts at complete decoding. However, there is a strong belief that it is the product of the 13th century scholar Roger (not Francis) Bacon. He is what this book is really about. After briefly describing what's known of the book's provenance, now at Yale's library, the authors wonderfully weave what is known of Roger Bacon's life into the context of his time, which occupies the central focus of the book. This is followed by sketches of a variety of interesting characters who were influenced by Roger Bacon or the book. They include the Elizabethans, John Dee, Sir Francis Walsingham, and Francis Bacon, and Rudolf II of Bohemia. Capping these characters are the more modern professional and amateur cryptographers who have tried to decipher the book. Throughout, the style is refreshing, literate, and compelling. While the mystery is largely unsolved regarding the manuscript, the authors make it clear that Roger Bacon deserves more regard and examination as a founder of the modern scientific method.

This is advertised as the story of the Voynich Manuscript, a mysterious volume of untranslatable and esoteric notes and drawings which surfaced in 1912. Apparently the work of the famed English medieval scientist Roger Bacon, the Voynich Manuscript has defied every translator and codebreaker.

The Goldstones have padded out the story of the manuscript itself (what can there be to say about a manuscript that no one can figure out?) with some fascinating material about Bacon and his contemporaries like Thomas Aquinas, all of whom were active during the 13th century buildup to what later came to be called the European Renaissance.

As a result, this book is part mystery, part history, and both parts are fascinating.

Don't you hate it when a book description isn't completely accurate? While I wouldn't necessarily say that's true in the case of Lawrence & Nancy Goldstone's The Friar and the Cipher, it does come very close. Ostensibly, the book is about the Voynich Manuscript, a document that has never been deciphered and which many believe was written by the noted thinker Roger Bacon, who lived in the thirteenth century. There has been a lot of controversy about this manuscript and its possible authorship, with many people believing that there's no way that Roger Bacon could have written it, or that it must be a hoax. It appears to be in some sort of code with strange illustrations in the margins. And yes, the book does discuss the great debate about this, detailing the many attempts to decode it and the many theories about who might have written it. Was it all a hoax committed by a friend of John Dee, Queen Elizabeth's trusted advisor, back in the late sixteenth century?

Of course, the problem is that this debate begins on page 223 of the edition I have. The book runs just over 300 pages, which presents kind of a problem. The rest of the book is a history of Western thought and the constant struggle between science and religion in the Middle Ages, when the Catholic church was all-powerful. It gives a very detailed history of Roger Bacon, supposedly to give the background to the debate on the manuscript. It also details his philosophical adversaries, as well as demonstrating how Europe came out of the Dark Ages due to the rediscovery of some of Aristotle's works. In fact, the book goes all the way back to Aristotle himself, and his differences with Plato.

All of this is fascinating stuff, and if you're in the mood for a discourse on logical thought and its struggles to get through religious dogma, then this book is definitely for you. I know I enjoyed it immensely. I just wish it had been better advertised as such. It covered a lot of ground that I was slightly familiar with, yet for which I had no real details. The Saracen empire was stretching into Spain at this point, and many of its scholars were well aware of Aristotle and his ideas of Logic. In fact, many of these scholars faced their own persecution from conservative Imams and other Moslem leaders, as the Goldstones show us in this book. As Europeans began to push back against this invasion, parts of Spain were recaptured, and these Moslem studies of Aristotle began to spread over Europe.

The Gladstones do a really effective job in giving this history in a concise, yet detailed format. I never felt like they were glossing over anything and I found these sections extremely valuable. If you've studied Western philosophy or the history of the Dark Ages, than this may not be new to you, but I found it intriguing. The authors then give a short history of the Dominican and the Franciscan orders of the Church, and how opposed to each other they were. They give the story of Francis of Assissi and how the Franciscans were formed, as well as the Dominicans and their noted scholar, Thomas Aquinas, and they discuss the university system as it existed in Europe at the time. Then they begin to delve deeply into Roger Bacon's biography. That's when the focus of the book begins to shift. However, it doesn't move that far at first. They use the differences between Thomas' thought and Bacon's to highlight the differences between those using Aristotle's logic and those using Church dogma, and it's a very enlightening section of the book.

Finally, we get to the manuscript itself, and where it may have gone (as it disappears from history periodically). Unfortunately, this is where the book really begins to drag. We are given fairly detailed passages on cryptology as many twentieth-century cryptologists try to decode the manuscript. I found I was much more interested in the discussions on Western thought than I was in the decoding of the manuscript, especially after remembering that nobody has ever solved the riddle. Some of these stories are interesting, but I found my interest flagging as I read about what happened to these various people.

Which brings me to the ultimate problem with this book and how it was marketed (and even titled). The Friar and the Cipher is a wonderful book on Western philosophy. However, there's nothing really new in the book when it comes to the manuscript. It doesn't take sides in the controversy, only saying that it seems likely that Bacon did write it. They raise questions, but they don't really provide anything new to anybody who has any knowledge of the subject. The book seems to be a way to gather a bunch of different sources into one volume, sort of a "this is where we're at" kind of thing.

It also is almost a love letter to Roger Bacon. They ferociously defend him against any of his critics who claim he wasn't what his fans make him out to be. He has come in for a lot of criticism over the years, and the Goldstones bring it all up and knock it down. Who's right and who's wrong is not for me to judge, as this is my first exposure to Bacon. However, one positive aspect of this defense is that they do acknowledge that the criticism *could* be right, but that it's misplaced. Bacon may not have been the leading light his fans make him out to be, but it was his methods that made him special, regardless of the ideas themselves. And perhaps that could be a defense of the book as well. The Friar and the Cipher may not be as special as it could be regarding the Voynich manuscript, but the method of getting there is extremely well done.

David Roy

I bought this book (at a store) without closely examining the contents---I did not want to spoil the ending for myself. This was a good book and hard to put down, but for a book of 300 text pages, nearly 250 were devoted to background. I wanted to see more on the cipher itself and the attempts to crack it. Nevertheless, the authors did a good job of presenting the relevant historical background. That in itself was almost worth the read. More text on the cipher would have earned this book 5 stars.

A fascinating story, and a page turner. However, like another reviewer said, I too had hoped for more information on the manuscript and the attempts to decipher it. I also feel that some of the theories of the authors are not well supported by the information they present.

while the history of Roger Bacon was interesting and the other historic figures(Aristotle, Soccrates, etal) I was expecting more about the actual manuscript and how it was deciphered and those around that quest. Instead the book spends over 2/3s relating stories of how various famous figures interacted, political climates and philosophies. This is nice background but it could have been shortened, in this reader's humble opinion.
If you want to know more about the Manuscript, look to another book.

What struck me is that the authors don't tell the reader why they go into John Dee and the many others who tangled with this manuscript. From the title, one thinks it is a book about Roger Bacon and the manuscript but instead the first three quarters of the book is about scientific thought in the Middle Ages.

This would be OK but the writers need to draw a line to its relevance to the Bacon/manuscript connection and they never did.

So--they either need to change the title or adjust their framework.

I'll read their other books, though. Their writing flows and they know how to make history entertaining.

NJCher

There are much better books out there covering these subjects. The biographies of Bacon and John Dee, for instance, are done much better in The First Scientist and The Queen's Conjurer. The authors clearly don't understand Bacon's science (totally misrepresenting his idea of species) and similarly know little about cryptography. Towards the end, in the surprisingly thin section on the Voynich manuscript, they comment that "no matter how brilliant the mind that fashioned a code, an equally brilliant mind might break it". This just isn't true - a one time pad may be a pain to use, but it is totally impossible to break, period. A real disappointment.