GROSSETESTE, ROBERT (c. bishop of Lincoln, and one of the greatest of mediaeval statesmen and philosophers, was born of humble parents at Stradbrook, Suffolk. About 1197, he graduated at Oxford where he had become pro ficient in law, medicine and the natural sciences. Some ten years later he took his divinity degree, and soon after this event, as the outstanding teacher at Oxford, he was appointed Master of the Oxford Schools, a status which was first termed "Chancellor" in the Legatine Ordinance of 1214. In 1229 when the Franciscans established their first school at Oxford, Grosseteste was secured as their reader in theology. According to Roger Bacon, who was a severe critic, Grosseteste was pre-eminent among his con temporaries for his knowledge of the natural sciences and of mathematics. Between 1214 and 1231 Grosseteste held in succes sion the archdeaconries of Chester, Northampton and Leicester. In 1232, he resigned all his preferments except one prebend at Lincoln. But he retained the office of chancellor, and in accepted the bishopric of Lincoln, an appointment which he held until his death on Oct. 9, 1253.
Grosseteste's scheme to reform morals and clerical discipline throughout his vast diocese, brought him into conflict with more than one privileged corporation, in particular with his own chapter, and it was only in 1245 that by a personal visit to the papal court at Lyons, he secured a favourable verdict. His zeal for reform led him to advance, on behalf of the courts-Christian, pretensions which it was impossible that the secular power should admit. He twice incurred a well-merited rebuke from Henry III. upon this subject; although it was left for Edward I. to settle the question of principle in favour of the state. The devotion of Grosseteste to the hierarchical theories of his age is attested by his corre spondence with his chapter and the king. Against the former he upheld the prerogative of the bishops ; against the latter he as serted that it was impossible for a bishop to disregard the commands of the Holy See. Where the liberties of the national church came into conflict with the pretensions of Rome he stood by his countrymen. Of royal exactions he was impatient.
It was, however, soon made clear that the king and pope were in alliance to crush the independence of the English clergy; and from 125o onwards Grosseteste openly criticized the new financial expedients to which Innocent IV. had been driven by his desperate conflict with the Empire. While visiting Innocent in 125o, the bishop laid before the pope and cardinals a written memorial in which he ascribed all the evils of the Church to the malignant influence of the Curia. It produced no effect, although the cardi nals felt that Grosseteste was too influential to be punished for his audacity. In 1251 he protested against a papal mandate enjoining the English clergy to pay Henry III. one-tenth of their revenues for a crusade, and in 12S3 against a command to provide in his own diocese for a papal nephew.
In literary and speculative activities, Grosseteste found some release from his ecclesiastical and political cares. He was familiar with the Neo-Platonic materials introduced into the West by the Arabians, with their scientific treatises and with the newly trans lated works of Aristotle. He himself contributed to the revival of learning by his commentaries on Aristotle, and by his Greek Latin translations of the Ethics, of the works of the pseudo Dionysius and of the De Fide Orth. of the Damascene; hence Grosseteste, rather than Albert the Great, must be credited with having introduced Aristotle into the West. The peculiar origin ality of his mind is further manifested by his profound interest in science, by his exaltation of mathematics, by his enthusiasm for the study of languages, by his treatises on husbandry and politics, by his poetical compositions and by his concern for music and ecclesiastical architecture. His philosophy, which represents the first attempt to reconcile the doctrines of Augustine and of Aristotle, is full of interest, especially in its denial of the eternity of the world, and in its doctrines of light as the origin of corporeity, of the stars as composed of the four elements, of the active intellect in man, of angelology and of the divine knowledge of singulars.