he"; praised Peter of Maricourt (the author of "A Letter on Magnetism") and John of London as "perfect" mathematicians; Campanus of Novara (the author of works on astronomy, astrology, and the calendar) and a Master Nicholas as "good"; and acknowledged the influence of Adam Marsh and lesser figures. He was clearly not an isolated genius. The medieval church was also not generally opposed to scientific investigation and medieval science was both varied and extensive. As a result, the picture of Bacon has changed. Bacon is now seen as part of his age: a leading figure in the beginnings of the medieval universities at Paris and Oxford but one joined in the development of the philosophy of science by Robert Grosseteste, William of Auvergne, Henry of Ghent, Albert Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham. Lindberg summarised: Bacon was not a modern, out of step with his age, or a harbinger of things to come, but a brilliant, combative, and somewhat eccentric schoolman of the thirteenth century, endeavoring to take advantage of the new learning just becoming available while remaining true to traditional notions... of the importance to be attached to philosophical knowledge". A recent review of the many visions of Bacon across the ages says contemporary scholarship still neglects one of the most important aspects of his life and thought: his commitment to the Franciscan order. His was a plea for reform addressed to the supreme spiritual head of the Christian faith, written against a background of apocalyptic expectation and informed by the driving concerns of the friars. It was designed to improve training for missionaries and to provide new skills to be employed in the defence of the Christian world against the enmity of non-Christians and of the Antichrist. It cannot usefully be read solely in the context of the history of science and philosophy. With regard to religion's influence on Bacon's philosophy, Charles Sanders Peirce noted, "To Roger Bacon,... the schoolmen's conception of reasoning appeared only an obstacle to truth... [but] Of all kinds of experience, the best, he thought, was interior illumination, which teaches many things about Nature which the external senses could never discover, such as the transubstantiation of bread." In Oxford lore, Bacon is credited as the namesake of Folly Bridge for having gotten himself placed under house arrest nearby. Although this is probably untrue, it had formerly been known as "Friar