Grosseteste (Greathead), Robert

GROSSETESTE (GREATHEAD), ROBERT. - English theologian and philosopher, b. at Stradbrook (county of Suffolk) ca. 1175, d. at Lincoln in 1253. He studied at Lincoln and at Oxford, where in 1222 he was elected chancellor of the University. Master of theology in the studium of the Friars Minor of Oxford (1224-35), archdeacon of Leicester (1229-32), in 1235 he was named bishop of Lincoln (whence the medieval designation of Lincolniensis). In the government of the diocese, which was then the largest in England, he waged bitter struggles for the implementation of a vast plan of reforms; he also resisted Innocent IV, when this Pope asked him for the collation of benefices for clerics from other countries.

The opposition was rather the fruit of untimely zeal than a sign of rebellion, since G. was a fervent upholder of the Roman primacy; Anglican historians therefore wrongly regard him as a precursor of Protestantism.

Although G., as seems probable, did not study in Paris, nevertheless his relations with Alexander of Hales and with John of La Rochelle (de Rupello) link him to the intellectual movement of that center, by whose programs he is clearly inspired. His numerous philosophical opuscules (ca. 27, whose critical edition was edited by L. Baur, Die philosophischen Werke des Robert Grosseteste, Bischofs von Lincoln [Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, 9], Münster 1912) touch on problems of metaphysics, of psychology, especially of philosophy of nature (astronomy, cosmology, physics, optics), in which he had Roger Bacon as disciple and continuator.

But G.'s fame is linked to his numerous translations from the Greek, which had an impact, in part, on the general movement of medieval thought: the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs; the Letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch (middle recension); the works of Pseudo-Dionysius with the scholia of Maximus; the De fide orthodoxa of St. John Damascene; various pseudo-Aristotelian opuscules; the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle (completed ca. 1243, it is the first Latin translation) with the commentaries of Eustratius of Nicaea, of Michael of Ephesus and of Aspasius. In this work he was assisted by John of Basingstoke (d. in 1252) and by Nicholas the Greek (d. in 1279).

His rich epistolary, precious for history, was edited by H. R. Luard, Roberti Grosseteste, episcopi quondam Lincolnensis, epistolae (London 1861). Through his extraordinary activity G. won the admiration of his countrymen, who petitioned Rome for his canonization (which never took place), and of the famous chronicler Salimbene, who called him «unus de maioribus clericis de mundo» (Cronica fratris Salimbene de Adam Ordinis Minorum, in MGH, Scriptores, XXXII, p. 233).

Antonio Piolanti