He was, according to some accounts the brother, according to others the uncle, of Roger Bacon. He is described as already an old man in 1238. He was educated at Oxford, where he was first the pupil and afterwards the friend and fellow-lecturer of Edmund Rich, on whose life he later wrote. He went with his friend Richard Fishaker to study at the University of Paris. According to the Biographia Britannica, in 1233 he succeeded Edmund Rich as treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral.
