9
October 1253 A.D. Robert Grosseteste Passes—Pastor of Souls, Bishop of Lincoln &
Chancellor of Oxford University.
Graves,
Dan. “Robert Grosseteste’s New Scientific Method.” Christianity.com. Jun 2007.
http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1201-1500/robert-grossetestes-new-scientific-method-11629839.html. Accessed 30 May 2014.
His clergymen must preach and teach the creed, the
ten commandments and the Lord's Prayer in English. The Bishop of Lincoln,
Robert Grosseteste was determined about that.
When underlings protested that
Latin was the proper language for the Bible, Robert answered that the people
did not understand Latin. If they could not understand what was being taught to
them, how would their souls be saved?
Since becoming bishop in 1235,
Robert had introduced many reforms and carried them out with vigor. Instruction
in English was just one of them. At that time it was common for clergymen to
draw incomes off several different church positions, even if they did not do
justice to any one of them. Robert renounced all of his livings but one and
insisted that others must do the same. He threw out churchmen who had bought
their jobs and made it clear that no man would be given a church job under him
unless his moral life was in good order. To make sure that his instructions
were carried out, he made surprise visits to the clergymen under him.
How some of them complained! But
Robert had an answer. "Remember," he said, "We are all going to
have to face God's judgment."
He explained his actions in
writing. "As soon as I became bishop, I considered myself to be the
overseer and pastor of souls; and lest the blood of the sheep should be
required at my hand at the strict judgment, I visited the sheep committed to my
charge."
The proper conduct of a
churchman was to save souls, he taught. A true priest visits the sick, and
prisoners, feeds the hungry, preaches, and teaches. A spiritual leader had no
business holding government office. He shouldn't spend so much time on
philosophy and science that he neglected to reach the lost and perform his
duties.
Science and philosophy were big
temptations to Robert. He was good at them. In fact, he is the first man in
history known to have written down the complete steps for making a proper scientific
experiment. He even founded a school at Oxford to do such experiments and made
his own attempts to try to explain the rainbow. He took an important step when
he applied mathematics to the study of optics. One of his most famous pupils
was Roger Bacon.
In addition to philosophy and
the theory of science, Robert was fascinated with Arabic, astronomy, calendar
reform, canon and civil law, comets, the Greek language, household management,
infinity theory, Jewish law, mathematics, medicine, space, theology, vacuum, and weather prediction. But souls came first. That is why he
loved the Franciscans: they chose poverty in their zeal to spread the gospel.
Little wonder that the early reformer John Wycliffe admired and quoted Robert.
Robert died on
this day, October 9, 1253. It was a long time before the world
could see just how far ahead of his time this great thinker was. He was
hundreds of years ahead on calendar reform, almost three hundred years ahead of
the reformation, four hundred years ahead of the scientific revolution and four
hundred years ahead of the wave theory of light.
Bibliography:
1. Callus, D. A. Robert Grosseteste, Scholar and Bishop; Essays in
commemoration of the seventh centenary of his death. London: Oxford
Univ, 1955.
2. Crombie, A. C. Grosseteste and Medieval Science.
Oxford: Clarendon, 1953.
3. "Grosseteste, Robert." Dictionary of National Biography.
Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. London: Oxford University Press, 1921
- 1996.
4. "Grosseteste, Robert." Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
Editor Charles Coulston Gillispie. New York: Scribner's, 1970.
5. Graves, Daniel. Scientists of Faith. Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Kregel, 1996.
Last updated June,
2007.
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