Grosseteste, Robert

(c.1170-1253), scientist, theologian, and bishop of Lincoln

by R. W. Southern

© Oxford University Press 2004 All rights reserved

Grosseteste, Robert (c.1170-1253), scientist, theologian, and bishop of Lincoln, combined a very humble origin with torrential energy, great ability, and a rarely paralleled breadth of intellectual interests. His career followed no ordinary pattern, and can be divided into five distinct periods.

Origins, early studies, and first employment, c.1170-1195
It is hard to disentangle fact from legend during Grosseteste's early years. It is certain that he came from a very poor family in Suffolk, and it is probable that he was born in one of the three places called Stow in that county, and it is also likely--though this is known only from much later testimony, which may, however, have earlier sources now lost--that in his youth he was supported at school in Lincoln by the generosity of Adam of Wigford, a man well known for his philanthropic activities, who was the first mayor of the town. According to the late medieval source (Richard of Bardney) which supplies information about Grosseteste's early years at school in Lincoln, he went from Lincoln to Cambridge, where schools for higher studies were beginning to flourish in the 1180s. Apart from this dubious ray of light, all is darkness until he appears as the last, and presumably most junior, witness of a charter of Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, of about 1190.

Grosseteste evidently had no assured position in the bishop's household, for in 1196 or thereabouts he joined the household of William de Vere, bishop of Hereford. This move was possibly the result of a warm testimonial from Gerald of Wales, who had recently come from Hereford and was studying at Lincoln. Gerald's letter testifies to Grosseteste's wide knowledge of the liberal arts, medicine, and law, but provides no further details.

In the diocese of Hereford; scientific writings, 1196-1220
Whether or not as a result of Gerald's testimonial, Grosseteste is next found from 1196 to 1198 witnessing several charters of Bishop William. But William died unexpectedly, in December 1198, before he had given Grosseteste a benefice, which would have been the normal reward for a substantial period of service; and it seems that the new bishop of Hereford, Giles de Briouze, brought his own household with him. At all events, he did not employ Grosseteste. Nevertheless it seems likely that Grosseteste continued to be employed in the Hereford diocese by Hugh Foliot, who was archdeacon of Shropshire from about 1195 until he became bishop of Hereford in 1219. The evidence is scanty but it is consistent. First, Hugh Foliot and Grosseteste are recorded as being joint papal judge-delegates at some time between 1214 and 1216 in a case concerning a parish in the diocese of Hereford. Then, when Hugh Foliot himself became bishop of Hereford, there is evidence that Grosseteste was still a member of his staff. Further, in 1220, Grosseteste was accused by royal justices of hearing a case in an ecclesiastical court in Shropshire that should have been heard in the royal court.

Scanty though this evidence is, it all points in the same direction, and indicates that these central years of Grosseteste's life from the age of about twenty-five to fifty were spent in administrative work in the diocese of Hereford. Further, this location is consistent with his intellectual history during these years, for Hereford was the most active centre of scientific studies in England, and Grosseteste's learned works during these years--except for one general survey of the liberal arts--are all scientific: On the Calendar, On the Movements of the Planets, On the Origin of Sounds; as well as some astronomical calculations contained in Bodl. Oxf., MS Savile 21, which seem to be in his very unusual handwriting, relating to the period of King John's death, which took place on 19 October 1216. Chronology, astrology, astronomy, and comets were subjects common to several scholars in the cathedral ambiance of Hereford, and Grosseteste wrote something on all of them. More broadly, all his written works from 1200 to 1220 belong to, and extend, the tradition of English astronomical and computational studies established by a long series of scholars from Walcher of Malvern, Petrus Alfonsi, and Adelard of Bath in the early years of the twelfth century, and continued by Daniel of Morley, Robert of Ketton, Robert of Chester, Roger Infans of Hereford, and Alfred of Shareshill in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

Although Grosseteste's works during these years can all be associated with this local tradition of scientific work, he showed his superiority to his environment by turning his mind to the principles of the natural sciences, and he wrote the first of all medieval Latin commentaries on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, with its account of the principles of scientific knowledge. This is the more remarkable because, although this work of Aristotle's had been translated into Latin in the mid-twelfth century, no scholar in western Europe before Grosseteste had undertaken to study and comment on it in detail, still less had any of the scientific scholars in the tradition to which Grosseteste belonged shown any theoretical understanding of the relationship between the methods of observation and calculation in the sciences with which Grosseteste and other English scientists were familiar, and the principles of demonstration, which are discussed in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics.

Thus Grosseteste's commentary, completed probably about 1220, not only brought the early scientific period of his life to a close, but also displayed a level of philosophical maturity quite beyond the scope of any earlier medieval scientists. So, although Grosseteste's scientific work has several characteristics which he shared with his colleagues at Hereford, and though like them he had no academic position and only a relatively humble place in ecclesiastical society, he alone showed a capacity to transcend the limitations of his local circumstances. Even if he had died before writing his commentary on the Posterior Analytics, his works would have sufficed to give Grosseteste a distinctive place in the history of scientific thought; but it is this commentary that provides the first evidence of his having greater intellectual powers and a wider range and more lively awareness of the general principles of scientific thought than any of his contemporaries.

Before leaving this period of his life, however, it must also be noted that ecclesiastical administration was considerably disrupted throughout England during the interdict from 1208 to 1214, and it is certain that Grosseteste, like many other ecclesiastical officials whose administrative work was interrupted, spent some time in France during these years. Looking back on his life as he lay on his deathbed, he recalled that he had heard a team of preachers, which included Stephen Langton, preaching in France against the heretical Cahorsins about 1212. This incident would probably have been in southern France where the Cahorsins were numerous; but there is also some evidence of Parisian influence in Grosseteste's work on the calendar. So it seems likely that he visited or passed through Paris at least on this occasion, though there is nothing to suggest that he taught or studied in the Parisian schools.

Years of transition, c.1220-1225
The five years between about 1220 and 1225 continue the very sparsely documented period of Grosseteste's life. His first biographer, Richard of Bardney, writing in the early sixteenth century but probably drawing on earlier material, relates that he came into contact with the royal household, and was in some way associated with the complicated negotiations between Pope Honorius III and the government of the young Henry III between 1222 and 1224. These negotiations led to the papal declaration that Henry III, though still technically a minor, was capable of undertaking the work of government. According to this account it was the young king who urged Grosseteste to turn his attention to theology. No contemporary evidence has been found to support this connection, but in whatever circumstances and under whatever influences the change in his interests took place, it is certain that during these years new studies and opportunities make their appearance in Grosseteste's development.

The most important new elements in his intellectual life following the completion of his commentary on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics were, first, that he enlarged his Aristotelian programme by beginning a commentary on Aristotle's Physics, which he completed gradually over the following ten years; second, that he undertook a very extensive course of reading in the fundamental sources of both Latin and Greek theology; and third that he began to acquire a working knowledge of Greek, which had been very elementary when he wrote his commentary on the Posterior Analytics. Further, at about this time, he began reading and annotating (using a code of symbols of his own devising) the Latin fathers, in particular Augustine, Gregory the Great, and Anselm's Cur Deus homo; and several manuscripts have survived which show his system of annotation in use.

So there are several converging lines of evidence pointing to new influences and new opportunities coming into Grosseteste's life at this time. The Hereford-based scientific studies of the years from about 1196 to 1220, having culminated in his commentary of the Posterior Analytics and in his beginning a commentary on Aristotle's Physics, were augmented--though never wholly replaced--by new developments, which were predominantly theological, along lines that show a marked originality of approach. These initiatives could all have sprung from Grosseteste's own mind with its widely ranging search for knowledge; but there were probably also outside influences at work which are at present obscure but may have arisen from an association with the royal court in the last years of Henry III's minority.

Teaching in the University of Oxford, 1225-1231
It is important to recognize that the years 1225-35, though centred in Oxford and showing a continuous intellectual development, represent two distinct periods in Grosseteste's religious life, running from 1225 to 1231 and 1231 to 1235. The year 1225 marked the definitive end of the period of Grosseteste's life associated with the diocese of Hereford, and brought him back to the diocese of Lincoln where his adult life had started. The first symptom of this change is found in the episcopal register of Hugh of Wells, bishop of Lincoln (d. 1235), which records that on 25 April 1225 the bishop gave Master Robert Grosseteste, who was still only in deacon's orders, conditional succession to the rectory of Abbotsley, Huntingdonshire. This preferment was subject to the non-appearance of any lawful claimant before 6 May 1225. No other claimant having appeared, Grosseteste received his first assured position in the ecclesiastical hierarchy as rector of a small village midway between Oxford and Cambridge.

Moreover, and almost certainly in association with this move, Grosseteste began at about this time to lecture in the Oxford schools, and a record of his lectures on the Psalms has survived in a small group of manuscripts of which one (Durham Cathedral, MS A. III. 12) can be dated about 1230. This manuscript is particularly important in providing evidence of Grosseteste's continuing development in three distinct areas while giving this course of lectures: first, in using a growing range of sources; second, in his increasing command of the works of Greek theologians; and, third, in the widening range and depth of his discussion of theological problems.

Grosseteste began his course very simply in dealing with the analysis of the nature of things mentioned by the Psalmist such as leaves, sap, mountains, and air; tears, eyes, heart, lungs, and blood; and in finding symbolic meanings of these images as referring to such subjects as human pride, humility, or justice. Then gradually he spoke at increasing length on theological and pastoral problems and quoted an ever extending body of both Latin and Greek texts. So the record of these lectures provides the most valuable evidence there is of Grosseteste's continuing theological and linguistic development during these years.

Then further, in 1229, while still continuing his lectures, Grosseteste was appointed archdeacon of Leicester; and, probably at about this same date, an incident occurred which shows that he had become a dominant figure in the university. To understand what happened it must be recalled that the constitution of the university had been laid down by the papal legate who in 1214 drew up the terms on which the schools of Oxford would reopen after their long closure, which had become complete in 1210 and lasted until the end of the interdict in 1214. Among other measures, the legate had laid down that the masters of Oxford, on returning from their exile, should have a chancellor appointed annually by the bishop of Lincoln.

Naturally (as had happened slightly earlier in Paris) the Oxford masters soon began, and long continued, to seek to have a voice in the appointment of their chancellor. One of the earliest symptoms of this was that, at a date that cannot be precisely determined, but which was probably about 1228-30, the masters, or a faction among them, chose Grosseteste as their chancellor without waiting for an episcopal nomination or perhaps even (so far as is known) for Grosseteste's consent. The bishop naturally rejected this infringement by the rebellious masters of his right of appointment, but he evidently felt sufficient respect for Grosseteste to allow him to perform the duties of chancellor for a year, with the reduced title of master of the schools.

This incident is known only because, as late as 1295, when the masters made a similar bid to nominate their chancellor, the bishop of Lincoln, Oliver Sutton, recalled Grosseteste's illicit nomination under his predecessor, Hugh of Wells, and ordered the record of it to be entered in his register as confirmation of his right to choose annually the chancellor of the university.

Lector to the Oxford Franciscans, 1231-1235
Despite these varied symptoms of success Grosseteste was contemplating a substantial change of direction which marked a new revolution in his personal life. This showed itself in 1231-2 in his divesting himself of his university position and his other marks of worldly success. In 1231 he gave up his archdeaconry of Leicester and his other sources of income including his parish of Abbotsley, and became lector to the recently founded community of Franciscan friars outside the Oxford city wall. Later writers were to see this move simply as a side-step from one kind of academic work to another, for the Franciscans soon became an integral, and even a leading, part of the university. But this was not the situation in 1231, and Grosseteste's move was a complicated act of self-denial which put him firmly in the category of supporters of a new way of life.

Indeed it is very likely that the precise influence and the date that led to this change of life can be determined. On 11 November 1229 the Dominican preacher Brother Jordan of Saxony visited Oxford and preached a sermon to the masters of the university attacking academic pride and calling for a renewal of pastoral commitment. Grosseteste was much moved by this sermon, for he later wrote to Brother Jordan recalling the conversations they had had during his visit to Oxford, and he kept a copy of the sermon in the manuscript, now at Durham, in which he wrote his lectures. Methodically he began divesting himself of his various offices and sources of income. This process took several months, but he did not, as some other masters did, renounce everything and become a Franciscan; and this was not for him a case of half measures, for, as he bluntly told his Franciscan listeners, he considered that working for one's living--ideally as the new Beguines of the Rhineland worked for their scanty earnings--represented a higher way of life than that of the Franciscans, who chose to beg. Nevertheless, though his own renunciation was carefully limited, his move to the friars represented a real self-denial and established him firmly as their friend.

Grosseteste held his position as lector for about four years from 1231 until 1235, and during these years he wrote four small but remarkably original theological works: De decem mandatis ('On the ten commandments'), De cessatione legalium ('On the end of the Old Testament law'), Hexaëmeron ('On the six days of creation'), and commentary on the epistle to the Galatians. He also continued his scientific works with a treatise On Light, placing special emphasis on the concept and place of light in the created order of the universe, and completed his commentary on Aristotle's Physics. Besides all this, he had by now obtained a sufficient command of Greek to contemplate making a new translation of the Hierarchies attributed to Dionysius. So, while his transfer from the university to the Franciscans inaugurated a new phase in his personal life, it also brought the culmination of his theological studies and initiated a new stage in his work as a translator. But he was also on the brink of a new expansion of his horizon.

Election as bishop of Lincoln, 1235
Hugh of Wells, who had been bishop of Lincoln since 1213, died on 7 February 1235. The cathedral canons had long altercations about his successor; then quite unexpectedly and unanimously they chose Grosseteste on 25 March. Three weeks later their choice was approved by Henry III, the temporalities being restored on 16 April, and the new bishop was consecrated by the archbishop of Canterbury on 17 June 1235. So he became the episcopal ruler of the largest diocese in England, stretching from the Humber to the Thames, with eight archdeaconries and nearly two thousand parishes.

Grosseteste brought to this task the same independence and indefatigable energy that he had shown in his intellectual enquiries. Indeed, far from diminishing the range of these enquiries, his new position provided him with ample resources for employing helpers in his translations from Greek and seeking Greek manuscripts in foreign libraries. He had several episcopal residences scattered throughout his diocese; and he seems to have used his small manor house at Liddington in Rutland for study, retirement, and probably for housing his group of translators of ancient Greek texts, while making his larger residence at Buckden in Huntingdonshire his main administrative headquarters.

From this point on, sources of information on Grosseteste become exceptionally abundant, and the central thread running through his very diversified activities of the next eighteen years is a passionate, though often frustrated, regard for the pastoral care of the parishes and religious communities in his diocese. He spoke to all, high and low alike, with the same independence and vigour that was evident in all he did. As an extension of his central pastoral concern, he also found time for very active interventions in the political affairs of the kingdom and in relations between the papacy and the local churches, while still continuing, and enlarging, his learned enterprises. These different aspects of his life as bishop of Lincoln will each require separate treatment, but--by way of introduction--an incident in his work as archdeacon of Leicester may be recalled, for it exhibits the intransigence and rejection of compromises which are the hallmark of his work as a bishop.

The Jews of Leicester
Grosseteste had become archdeacon of Leicester in 1229, and in 1231 Simon de Montfort (d. 1265) acquired the lordship of the town. One of the first things he did--evidently with Grosseteste's approval--was to expel the town's flourishing Jewish community, which thereupon went to Winchester, where there was already a large Jewish population. Here the new arrivals were given a friendly reception by Margaret de Quincy, countess of Winchester, who had formerly been countess of Lincoln. Although the whole business had passed beyond his jurisdiction, Grosseteste wrote her a long and vehement letter arguing against her reception of the Jews, and urging that they should be subjected to every deprivation short of death, and particularly deprived of their sole trade of usury. It is a letter of peculiarly unattractive violence, and shows the lengths to which he was prepared to go in guarding the Christian population from the 'moneylenders', and forbidding their rulers to draw any profit from the only livelihood open to the Jews scattered throughout the towns of western Europe. In Grosseteste's view they were to be given over to slavery, to earn their living by the sweat of their brows; and he described rulers who received any benefit from the usury of the Jews as drinking the blood of victims whom it was their duty to protect. There is no need for further elaboration, but the letter deserves mention as the first expression of the extremism that is evident in Grosseteste's approach to all practical problems, of which there will be several examples in his administration of his diocese.

Grosseteste's mission in his diocese
In an account of his ministry that Grosseteste wrote for the pope in 1250, this is how he described his first year as bishop:

I began to perambulate my bishopric, archdeaconry by archdeaconry, and rural deanery by rural deanery, requiring the clergy of each deanery to bring their people to have their children confirmed, to hear the word of God, and to make their confessions. (Gieben, 375-6)
This sums up the central theme of his life as bishop from beginning to end: his concern for the religious life of the whole population of his diocese and the persistent organized effort that he devoted to this task.To assist him in this work Grosseteste was accompanied in all his regular visitations of his diocese by a small group of Franciscan and Dominican friars, whom he selected with special regard to their suitability as confessors for all the people summoned to come to him during his perambulations. Pastoral concern was at the centre of all that he did, and in his first months as bishop he refused to institute to benefices at least three nominees of important men on the ground of insufficient learning. Then, besides his concern for the pastoral care of the whole diocesan population, he was no less active in regulating the discipline of all the monastic houses in his diocese that were not exempt from his jurisdiction. Acting on this principle he deposed seven abbots and four priors as a result of the first visitation of the monasteries in his diocese, made during the first six months of his episcopate. His insistence on his rights of visitation also brought Grosseteste into a dispute with the canons of Lincoln Cathedral which lasted for at least six years.

Of course Grosseteste was not alone among contemporary bishops in these pastoral activities. The thirteenth century was unique in the energy displayed by bishops in holding councils and making visitations, in which they repeated and enforced the rules of conduct and faith as defined especially in the general councils of 1123, 1179, and 1215; but Grosseteste was outstanding in the range, promptitude, and systematic rigour of his measures, bringing to this work an unquenchable energy and down-to-earth concentration on details, such as condemning the celebration of the Feast of Fools, to which few other bishops would stoop. But, on the other hand, it was recorded of him that he would never pass a dead body in a ditch (and it seems they were a not unfamiliar sight) without stopping to give it burial with the full rites in consecrated ground, even though this meticulous procedure would make him late for the meeting of the royal court that was the cause of this journey.

Pastoral activity and the kingdom of England
Grosseteste approached national affairs, in which he now as a bishop had a central role, with the same meticulous concern for the full execution of his responsibilities without regard for expediency. This soon involved him in a difference of opinion with the general body of bishops on the subject of a distinction between canon law and secular law with regard to succession to landed estates. In secular law, children who had been born before the marriage of their parents were not eligible to succeed to hereditary parental estates: that right belonged to the eldest son born after the marriage of the parents. But, in canon law, as most explicitly interpreted by Pope Alexander III (r. 1159-81), the marriage of the parents entirely legitimatized their premarital children.

The consequences of this conflict of laws had been discussed by barons and bishops in 1234. A change of the law on this matter, besides altering expectations of succession for the future, would open the way to disputes about succession going back far into the past, and in view of these complications, the bishops had agreed on a formula for evading the issue: in future, when an ecclesiastical court was required to make a declaration as to the status of a claimant to property on the death of a landholder, it would make no judgment about 'legitimacy' or 'illegitimacy', but simply state that the parents of the claimant had been married on such and such a date, and the claimant to the property had been born on such and such a date, leaving the question of succession to property to be settled by the secular court. The practical effect of this would of course be that, without any explicit rejection of the principle as expressed in canon law, the old secular rule of succession would continue to be effective.

This seemed to satisfy everybody--but not Grosseteste. Within months of his becoming a bishop he was refusing to co-operate in this evasion, and insisted on stating explicitly that a claimant born to parents who were married after his birth was 'legitimate', without further qualification. In defence of his position he wrote a twenty-page letter to William of Raleigh, one of the king's intimate legal counsellors, explaining with a vast array of quotations and arguments that the suggested compromise, whereby children born before their parents' marriage would continue to be excluded from succession to their parental estates, was contrary to the Bible (eight pages), to reason (three pages), to nature (two pages), and to canon law, civil law, and ancient custom (one and a half pages between them).

William of Raleigh replied to Grosseteste's thunderbolt in a somewhat jocular fashion; and to this letter Grosseteste sent a further, and by no means jocular, answer defending his position. But clearly his impassioned plea was looked on by others besides William of Raleigh as an eccentricity, and new adjustments in the procedure were devised that allowed the law to continue to operate as before. When the issue was raised again, at Merton in 1236, the barons made sure of this with their famous declaration: 'Non volumus leges Angliae mutari' ('We do not want the laws of England to be changed') .

This was only one example of the superabundance of energy and (as many thought) perverse arguments with which Grosseteste approached every issue. He saw it as the duty of all those in places of authority to ensure that the part of the transitory world for which they were responsible reflected the eternal will of God as closely as possible. He did this to the best of his ability on every issue; but, so far as the issue of succession was concerned, in the end his objection was quietly ignored by men who wanted no unnecessary changes. He met a similar reaction, though one much more damaging to himself, when his principle of pastoral care à outrance was applied to the actions of the papacy, and this will require separate treatment.

Diocesan affairs in relation to the papacy
Grosseteste had the highest possible view both of the nature and role of the papacy in the church as a whole, and of the pastoral responsibilities of bishops in their respective dioceses. In principle of course there was no conflict between these two; but when a pope used papal powers over local churches for family enrichment or the promotion of unworthy relatives, or even (and this was much more widely prevalent) for the administrative needs of the papacy, to the detriment of the pastoral care of ordinary people, then--in Grosseteste's view--the pope betrayed his office and lost his authority as pope. So, from Grosseteste's very exalted view of the papacy, there followed the need to oppose the pope.

It is unlikely that he ever envisaged a situation of such fundamental papal corruption as would justify an anti-papal movement at large. This was what John Wyclif would read into his words a hundred years later, when he pointed to Grosseteste as the founding father of anti-papal doctrine and activity. But Grosseteste's opposition to Innocent IV was based on the narrower ground of the pope's betrayal of his pastoral office in the interests of family or administrative expediency. In detail, what he vehemently objected to was that pope, king, or any other ecclesiastical or lay authority should use their rights of presentation, however acquired, to give parishes to men who had no interest in, or capacity for, meeting the pastoral needs of ordinary people. This problem consumed more of his energies and brought him into conflict with a wide range of owners of rights of parochial appointment: in the first place his own chapter; then the king and royal officials; and eventually the pope. It was the final stage that clouded his last years.

Grosseteste and the papacy
Grosseteste paid two visits to the papal curia, and on both occasions he used his visit as an opportunity for raising this fundamental problem. The first occasion was in 1245, when he went to Lyons at the time of the general council under Innocent IV, determined to get papal support for imposing limits on the power of members of his chapter to give benefices to members of their families or friends without regard to their aptitude for performing their parochial duties. The sharp and cynical eye of the St Albans chronicler, Matthew Paris, described him as going 'like Ishmael a stranger to peace' to get at great cost a papal letter curtailing the freedom of his chapter in this matter (Paris, Chron., 5.186). He did not get much, but at least he got something, though exactly what it amounted to in practice is not easy, or perhaps possible, to say.

Grosseteste's second visit to the pope in 1250 was more serious. In preparation he wrote a whole dossier of documents dealing with various aspects of the venality of the papal curia in conferring benefices on relatives, or members of the curia, who did not, or could not, or would not, perform the pastoral duties attached to their benefices, and who were thus, in Grosseteste's last reported words on his deathbed, guilty of slaying souls by defrauding them of pastoral care, and were therefore 'heretics' in the true sense of the word.

The reading of Grosseteste's statements to members of the papal curia, in which he unburdened his soul by denouncing false pastors in the church, must have taken several sessions over a period of two or three days. Those whom he described as antichrists and limbs of Satan masquerading as angels of light and endowed with the persona of Jesus Christ were, he declared, to be found throughout the church; but above all they were to be found in the papal curia, the fons et origo--as he believed--of all the evil in the church.

It is to be noticed that in these very fiery speeches Grosseteste indicted not the pope himself but the curia, which increasingly provided the driving force in the church and spoke in the name of the pope in a daily flow of letters. Matthew Paris, who greatly admired Grosseteste in some ways, and whose admiration grew after his death, clearly thought him unbalanced, and no doubt others thought the same. But in these passionate utterances, as in all Grosseteste's efforts as bishop, there was a determined, unremitting, concern for pastoral care. This (as he saw it) was everywhere being thrust aside by the needs of administration or family endowment or personal ease; and this was the theme that Grosseteste presented at the papal curia in 1250 in a series of theses that are certainly the greatest survey of the state of Christendom, in its internal failings and in its relationship to the outside world, in the thirteenth century. They are all the more impressive because, though they savagely attacked papal actions, they were written by a devoted papalist, who elaborated his message in person at the papal court at the height of its medieval development.

There were several apocalyptic predictions of doom current at this time, chiefly those associated with Joachim di Fiore, and Grosseteste was certainly aware of them. But his own analysis of the situation, though pessimistic, was not visionary. It belonged to the world of practical reality, which could (he believed) be repaired if the pope would concentrate on pastoral care rather than on the mundane interests of the church. Grosseteste had grasped a truth about the smallness and vulnerability of Christendom which was gradually becoming clear from the reports of travellers. But above all he had come to think that there was a fatal weakness at the heart of Christendom caused by the papal misuse of spiritual offices for private and family, or for administrative, ends.

Innocent IV's reaction to Grosseteste's elaborations of his criticisms of the curia in 1250 seems to have been (in effect) to suspend him by sending his instructions about presentations in the diocese of Lincoln to his own agent and to the archdeacon of Canterbury. Of course, from Grosseteste's point of view, this simply embodied the flaw at the centre of the papal position; and was a further assault on the episcopal office. Consequently the last years of his life were ravaged by a deep sense of failure, summed up in the hostility of the papal curia and his sense of the impending failure of Christendom, which he expressed most movingly on his deathbed.

Grosseteste's deathbed
Grosseteste's final words on his deathbed were reported to Matthew Paris by the Franciscan physician who attended him, and by the archdeacon of Bedford, John of Crakehall, who was also present, and they are the greatest set piece in his Chronica majora. According to this report, Grosseteste asked his physician to give him a definition of heresy, and when he hesitated he himself supplied it in words which may be summarized thus:

Heresy is an opinion [sententia] chosen by human sense, contrary to Scripture, openly declared, and pertinaciously defended; and to defy the gospel by giving the care of souls to those who are inadequate either in learning or in commitment is heresy in action. Many defy the gospel in this way, the pope most of all; and it is the duty of all faithful persons, and more particularly the Franciscans and Dominicans, to oppose such a person. (Paris, Chron., 5.401-2)
Exhausted by these and other similarly horrific reflections, Grosseteste died at Buckden during the night of the feast of St Denis (to Grosseteste, as to all his contemporaries, identifiable with Dionysius the Areopagite), on 9 October 1253, and the air was filled with strange sounds of bells and perturbations of nature. These events almost at once provoked local veneration at Grosseteste's tomb in Lincoln Cathedral, and stimulated five successive attempts by the bishop and chapter between 1254 and 1307 to procure Grosseteste's canonization by the Holy See. They were all unsuccessful.

Grosseteste's many-sided character and personal characteristics
Although his theses of 1250 were his final words on the whole problem of Christendom, there were several other sides to Grosseteste's character. Physically impressive--when his tomb was opened in 1782 he was found to have been slightly over 6 feet tall--he was dignified, sociable, and at ease with people at every level of society. He amazed his aristocratic contemporaries, who all knew of his humble origin, by his exquisite courtesy and the easy confidence with which he moved in the society of the great and managed the wealth that had come into his hands. The greatest magnates recognized the charm of his personality and the good manners that prevailed in his household, and they were glad to send their sons to him to learn the rules of courtesy. Moreover he loved music, kept a private harpist, and wrote a long poem in French, Le château d'amour, designed to provide a lay audience with an outline of Christian theology, in the metre and rhyming couplets that were to be used by Walter Scott in his Lay of the Last Minstrel. Then too, amid all his episcopal duties and learned enterprises, he wrote a set of Rules for the management of his episcopal estates, which he revised for the use of the Countess Margaret of Lincoln, descending to such details as the need to take care that the straw after threshing should bring half as much as the corn. So here, in the details of his episcopal duties, and as in his earlier observations on tides, eclipses, and comets, nothing was too small to escape his notice.

As for Grosseteste's learning Greek and the use that he made of his knowledge, it is not known what inspired this great extension of his interests rather late in life, but the moment was certainly propitious on several grounds. First, after the Latin capture of Constantinople in 1204 contacts between western European and Greek scholars were closer than they had been for several hundred years; second, the time was ripe for completing the absorption of ancient Greek learning through direct contact with the original sources; and, third, the stream of scientific work by scholars outside the great schools was increasingly impinging on the main stream of theological questions.

It was in this atmosphere that Grosseteste began learning Greek and turning his attention to theology in the 1220s, and that one scholar, John of Basingstoke, who had spent several years in Athens, brought some Greek books back to England. He may have been Grosseteste's earliest teacher of Greek, for within a few months of becoming bishop of Lincoln Grosseteste made him archdeacon of Leicester. He was clearly on the lookout for further scholars with a knowledge of Greek, and masters Robert the Greek and Nicholas the Greek (or Sicilian) soon also joined his household. Grosseteste now had money to spend on seeking Greek manuscripts, and some of the books on which he spent it are recorded.

It might seem that this avid search for knowledge about every aspect of the created universe somewhat contradicted Grosseteste's strong emphasis on the primacy of pastoral care in the work of all who held the endowments of the church in trust. But he clearly regarded everything that led to a better understanding of creation and redemption in all their aspects as contributing to the pastoral office. In this light the resources which the bishopric put into his hands were never better employed than in the scholarly work which contributed towards making the Greek masterpieces of the past available to the Latin West.

One discovery which he greatly prized, and which he caused to be translated into Latin, was the original Greek of The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, which John of Basingstoke, who had heard of the existence of the work in Athens, brought to his attention, and which Grosseteste translated with the help of Nicholas the Greek. It has turned out to be a forgery, but this is one of the hazards of scholarship, and Grosseteste's use of his resources for promoting scholarly work must be accounted one of his most solid claims to fame. Nor is it to be looked on as an afterthought for which the revenues of his bishopric provided the necessary money, for the broadening of his horizons went back at least fifteen years before he became a bishop, and it continued until the end of his life with new translations and commentaries on the Hierarchies of Dionysius and Aristotle's De caelo and Nicomachean Ethics. They were all part of his general aim of extending knowledge of the divine act of creation, and they all had a place in his conception of a pastoral ministry.

When these varied aspects of his life are taken into account, Grosseteste deserves to be recognized as a man of outstanding power in four main areas: as one of the most forceful and original interpreters of the Christian universe in the light of the Greek and Arabic science; as a theologian who had formed his mind on a wide reading of the main Latin and Greek fathers; as a man of action in attempting to give practical realization to an ideal of pastoral care; and as a man of the people at a time when it was almost impossible for such a man to get either the education or the promotion necessary for achieving real distinction either as a scholar or as a man of action. He overcame every obstacle in achieving these ends. The violence of his opinions on practical matters, which has been illustrated in his advice about the treatment of the Jews, was balanced, indeed prompted, by a deep concern for the souls of ordinary people; and the remarkable urbanity of his relationships with king and barons had a similar foundation.

Posthumous influence
In the context of the massive intellectual constructions of the schools which were approaching the height of their systematic development during Grosseteste's lifetime, his own learned works--powerful, many-sided, and original though they are as examples of what could be achieved by an independent intellect--were too far removed from the main stream of scholastic thought to make a profound impression on the intellectual development of his time. A few of Grosseteste's works--in particular his commentary on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics--achieved a permanent place among scholastic texts. But it was only in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, in the first place with Wyclif and his followers, that he became a symbol for a kind of reforming zeal with which he would himself have had little sympathy. He had no quarrel with the principles of scholastic thought or with papal government. What he wanted was to extend the range of texts available for scholastic study, and to bring papal power back to the simple aim of pastoral care; and this meant that popes, bishops, and clergy alike should concentrate all their efforts on the promotion of truth, justice, and the salvation of souls.

Although Grosseteste displayed throughout his long life very remarkable powers of mind, will, and physical energy, he did not have the influence either on the events of his time or on the development of contemporary learning that he might have had in a period of greater upheaval. For this he had to wait until the late fourteenth century, when Wyclif and his followers eagerly sought out and read the drafts and completed works that he had bequeathed to the library of the Oxford Franciscans. Here they thought they had found a reformer like themselves. They did not see that Grosseteste's violence was very different from theirs in being directed, not against the system, but against the use of power for ends other than pastoral care. Consequently when he was read by men of conservative instincts--as for instance Dr Thomas Gascoigne (d. 1458) in the early fifteenth century--they found him very different from the man imagined and praised by Wyclif: Gascoigne saw him as a man of old-fashioned principles, and thought him better than Thomas Aquinas, and close to Augustine.

Later reformers in the sixteenth century do not seem to have had much interest in Grosseteste's works, but in the late seventeenth century some of his dicta were published by E. Brown in 1690, and his late medieval life by Richard of Bardney was published by Henry Wharton in 1691. Scholarly editions of Grosseteste began with the publication of his letters by H. R. Luard in the Rolls Series in 1861 and of his short scientific treatises by Ludwig Baur in 1912. But the study of his work in its contemporary context began with the surveys of S. Harrison Thomson (1940) and A. C. Crombie (1953), followed by the volume of studies edited by D. A. Callus (1955). During the last forty years the flow has been very considerable. The best survey of the books owned by Grosseteste is by R. W. Hunt in Callus (1955), and the best survey of Grosseteste's thought as a whole down to the date of its publication is by J. McEvoy (1982). More recently, the study by R. W. Southern (1986, 2nd edn 1992) has radically revised perceptions of the structure of Grosseteste's career, while placing him in his wider European context. The continuing process whereby Grosseteste's writings are made available in modern critical editions can only enhance his reputation. It seems likely that when that process is complete, he will take his place in the first rank of medieval Englishmen.

R. W. SOUTHERN

Sources   WORKS: TEXTS AND SURVEYS L. Baur, Die Philosophischen Werke des Robert Grosseteste, Bishofs von Lincoln, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, 9 (1912)
R. Grosseteste, Commentarius in Posteriorum analyticorum libros, ed. P. Rossi (Florence, 1981)
R. Grosseteste, Hexaëmeron, ed. R. C. Dales and S. Gieben (1982)
R. Grosseteste, De cessatione legalium, ed. R. C. Dales and E. B. King (1986)
R. Grosseteste, Commentarius in VIII libros physicorum Aristotelis, ed. R. C. Dales (Boulder, CO, 1963)
R. Grosseteste, De decem mandatis, ed. R. C. Dales and E. B. King (1987)
Roberti Grosseteste episcopi quondam Lincolniensis epistolae, ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls Series, 25 (1861)
R. Grosseteste, Le château d'amour, ed. J. Murray (1918)
Walter of Henley's Husbandry together with Robert Grosseteste's Rules, ed. and trans. E. Lamond (1890)
Walter of Henley, and other treatises on estate management and accounting, ed. D. Oschinsky (1971), 388-415
E. Brown, ed., Fasciculus rerum expetendarum ac fugiendarum (1690), 2.244-307 [sel. of Grosseteste's dicta]
S. Gieben, 'Robert Grosseteste at the papal court, Lyons, 1250, edition of the documents', Collectanea Franciscana, 41 (1971), 340-93
R. W. Hunt, 'The library of Robert Grosseteste', Robert Grosseteste, scholar and bishop, ed. D. A. Callus (1955), 121-49
R. Barbour, 'A MS of Ps-Denys copied for Robert Grosseteste', Bodleian Quarterly Review, 6 (1958), 401-15
A. C. Dionisotti, 'On the Greek studies of Robert Grosseteste', The uses of Greek and Latin: historical essays (1988), 19-39
S. Harrison Thomson, The writings of Robert Grosseteste (Colorado, 1963)
HISTORICAL SOURCES Ann. mon., vols. 1-5, esp. vols. 1, 3
Gir. Camb. opera, 1.93, 249
D. Whitelock, M. Brett, and C. N. L. Brooke, eds., Councils and synods with other documents relating to the English church, 871-1204, 1 (1981), 201-7, 261-78, 479-81
Paris, Chron., vols. 3-6
J. Stevenson, ed., Chronicon de Lanercost, 1201-1346, Bannatyne Club, 65 (1839), 43-6, 50, 58, 72, 187-8
Richardo monacho Bardeniensi, 'Life of Robert Grosthed', in [H. Wharton], Anglia sacra, 2 (1691), 325-41 [see also J. C. Russell, Medievalia et Humanistica, 2 (1943), 45-55]
F. Hill, Medieval Lincoln (1948), 194-5
Hist. U. Oxf. 1: Early Oxf. schools, 29-36
Fratris Thomae vulgo dicti de Eccleston tractatus de adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam, ed. A. G. Little (1951), 99
RECORD SOURCES cartulary of St Guthlac, Balliol Oxf., MS 271 U. Rees, ed., The cartulary of Haughmond Abbey (1985), 69
R. R. Darlington, ed., The cartulary of Worcester Cathedral Priory (register I), PRSoc., 76, new ser., 38 (1968), 72-3
Curia regis rolls preserved in the Public Record Office (1922-), vol. 9
F. N. Davis and others, eds., Rotuli Hugonis de Welles, episcopi Lincolniensis, CYS, 3 (1908), 48
F. N. Davis, ed., Rotuli Roberti Grosseteste, Lincoln RS, 11 (1914)
R. M. T. Hill, ed., The rolls and register of Bishop Oliver Sutton, 5, Lincoln RS, 60 (1965), 59-61
MODERN STUDIES AND INTERPRETATIONS D. A. Callus, ed., Robert Grosseteste, scholar and bishop (1955)
A. C. Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and the origins of experimental science, 1100-1700 (1953)
J. McEvoy, The philosophy of Robert Grosseteste (1982) [incl. extensive bibliography]
R. W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste: the growth of an English mind in medieval Europe, 2nd edn (1992)
J. McEvoy, ed., 'Robert Grosseteste: new perspectives on his thought and scholarship', Instrumenta Patristica [special issue], 27 (1995)
D. Owen, ed., A history of Lincoln Minster (1994)
LATER INFLUENCE R. Thomson, The Latin writings of John Wyclif (Toronto, 1983)
T. Gascoigne, Loci e libro veritatum, ed. J. E. Thorold Rogers (1881)

Likenesses  
drawing, BL, MS Harley 3860, fol. 48
episcopal seal, BL; Birch, Seals, 1605
illuminated initial, BL, Royal MS 6 E.v, fol. 6 [see illus.]


© Oxford University Press 2004 All rights reserved

[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11665]

GO TO THE OUP ARTICLE (Sign-in required)