Robert Grosseteste
English bishop, philosopher, and early scientific thinker.
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He was born into a humble Anglo-Norman family in Suffolk, England.[1] Although formal canonisation was never achieved, after his death Grosseteste was widely venerated as a saint throughout England.[2]
Life and work
He trained Franciscans in university theology and his most famous disciple was Roger Bacon.[3] In 1235 the canons of Lincoln cathedral, deadlocked in electing a successor to Hugh of Wells, chose Grosseteste as a compromise candidate.[4] As bishop he instituted an innovative visitation programme that covered all deaneries in his diocese.[4][5] This programme sparked a dispute with his own chapter that lasted from 1239 to 1245.[5]
Grosseteste sat on a committee in 1244 that rejected a royal subsidy demand and foiled the king’s attempt to separate clergy from barons.[5] He protested in 1251 against a papal mandate requiring English clergy to pay Henry III one-tenth of their revenues for a crusade.[5] On 9 October 1253, Grosseteste passed away at an age estimated between 80 and 85.[6]
What the cited sources add
The Dabhoiwala article notes that Grosseteste compiled an enormous subject index to all the world’s knowledge to aid himself and his students.[7] It also records that he was the first in the Latin West to propose a doctrine of unequal infinities.[1] He was strongly influenced by Latin translations of Greek and Arabic writings, notably Aristotle, Avicenna, and Averroes.[1] The notion of light appears prominently in his biblical commentaries, his account of sense perception, and his writings on optics.[1]
References
- Neil, "Robert Grosseteste", plato.stanford.edu. facts only, no text reused. plato.stanford.edu
- Wikipedia, "Robert Grosseteste" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Giles E. M. Gasper, et al, Knowing and Speaking: Robert Grosseteste's "De artibus liberalibus" ("On the Liberal Arts") and "De Generatione Sonorum" ("On the Gen (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Robert Grosseteste" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: John Freely, Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World, Alfred A. Knopf, 2009 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Robert Grosseteste" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 255; British History Online Bishops of Lincoln accessed on 28 October 2007 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Robert Grosseteste" (CC BY-SA 4.0) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Robert Grosseteste" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 255; James McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste (Oxford University Press 2000 ), p. 30 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Dabhoiwala, "Life Is Short. Indexes Are Necessary.", 22 June 2023. facts only, no text reused. nybooks.com
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Robert Grosseteste (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Robert Grosseteste (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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