Setting the thought of Robert Grosseteste within the broader context of the intellectual, religious, and social movements of his time, this study elucidates the evolution of his ideas on topics ranging from the mathematical laws that govern the movement of bodies, God as the mathematical Creator, and human knowledge, to religious experience and the place of humanity within the social, natural, and providential orders.
In this book, James McEvoy provides a brief, accessible introduction to the thought of Robert Grosseteste (c 1168-1253). Grosseteste was the initiator of the English scientific tradition, one of the first chancellors of Oxford University, and a famous teacher and commentator on the newly discovered works of Aristotle. Despite his importance, very little of his work is available in English. McEvoy translates into English brief passages from Grosseteste's own writings which are of central importance to his thought and builds around them the first general, inclusive overview of the entire range of Grosseteste's intellectual achievement.
In this book Philippa Hoskin offers an account of the pastoral theory and practice of Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln 1235-1253, within his diocese. Grosseteste has been considered as an eminent medieval philosopher and theologian, and as a bishop focused on pastoral care, but there has been no attempt to consider how his scholarship influenced his pastoral practice. Making use of Grosseteste’s own writings – philosophical and theological as well as pastoral and administrative – Hoskin demonstrates how Grosseteste’s famous interventions in his diocese grew from his own theory of personal obligation in pastoral care as well as how his personal involvement in his diocese could threaten well-developed clerical and lay networks.
Bishop Robert Grosseteste and Lincoln Cathedral is an in-depth investigation of Grosseteste’s relationship to the medieval cathedral at Lincoln and the surrounding city. This book will contribute to the understanding of Gothic architecture in early thirteenth century England – most specifically, how forms and spaces were conceived in relation to the cultural, religious and political life of the period. The essays make an important contribution to our understanding of the relation between architecture, theology, politics and society during the Middle Ages, and how religious spaces were conceived and experienced.
The award-winning former editor of Science News shows that one of the most fascinating and controversial ideas in contemporary cosmology—the existence of multiple parallel universes—has a long and divisive history that continues to this day. We often consider the universe to encompass everything that exists, but some scientists have come to believe that the vast, expanding universe we inhabit may be just one of many. The totality of those parallel universes, still for some the stuff of science fiction, has come to be known as the multiverse. The concept of the multiverse, exotic as it may be, isn’t actually new. In The Number of the Heavens, veteran science journalist Tom Siegfried traces the history of this controversial idea from antiquity to the present. Ancient Greek philosophers first raised the possibility of multiple universes, but Aristotle insisted on one and only one cosmos. Then in 1277 the bishop of Paris declared it heresy to teach that God could not create as many universes as he pleased, unleashing fervent philosophical debate about whether there might exist a “plurality of worlds.” As the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance, the philosophical debates became more scientific. René Descartes declared “the number of the heavens” to be indefinitely large, and as notions of the known universe expanded from our solar system to our galaxy, the debate about its multiplicity was repeatedly recast. In the 1980s, new theories about the big bang reignited interest in the multiverse. Today the controversy continues, as cosmologists and physicists explore the possibility of many big bangs, extra dimensions of space, and a set of branching, parallel universes. This engrossing story offers deep lessons about the nature of science and the quest to understand the universe.
This 1940 book constitutes an extensive bibliographical study of the works of Robert Grosseteste, the 13th-century Bishop of Lincoln. Over 140 libraries were visited and approximately 2500 manuscripts consulted during the preparation of the text, with many manuscripts being examined without prior knowledge that they contained material by Grosseteste.
"Historical scholarship in the last half-century has found the origins of modern science long before the so-called Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century, has demonstrated in fact that the modern science of the West began in the thirteenth century withe the Western response to the new Latin translations from Greek and Arabic. Dr. Crombie has shown in this study that the outstanding contribution of the natural philosophers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to the Western scientific tradition was their understanding of the systematic use of experiment in scientific investigation and explanation. This contribution marks one of the great stages in the history of science, comparable with the development of geometry by the Greeks and of the mathematics of motion in the seventeenth century. Uniting Greek geometrical methods with the practical tradition of Western and Arab technology, Western scholars, beginning with Robert Grosseteste and his followers in Oxford, systematically developed methods of induction and experimental verification and falsification which have remained a permanent part of scientific procedure. The book begins with a sketch of the philosophical and technological background to thirteenth-century science. It goes on to give a detailed analysis of Grosseteste's ideas on the logic of science and the development of these ideas in Oxford from Roger Bacon to William of Ockham and Thomas Bradwardine. Then follows an account of the influence of Oxford ideas on scientific method in Paris and other continental centres. Examples are given of the use of the new experimental method in investigating concrete problems. especially in optics, astronomy, and magnetics. The theory of the rainbow, first attempted by Grosseteste and successfully advanced in the essentials detail. The book concludes by tracing the influence of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century writings on the rainbow and on the nature of light down to Descartes and Newton, and the influence of the writings on scientific method down to Francis Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton."- Publisher
Architecture as Cosmology examines the precedents, interpretations, and influences of the architecture of one of the great buildings in the history of architecture, Lincoln Cathedral. It analyzes the origin and development of its architectural forms, which were to a great extent unprecedented and were very influential in the development of English Gothic architecture and in conceptions of architecture to the present day. Architecture as Cosmology emphasizes the relation of the architectural forms to medieval philosophy, focusing on the writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (1235-53). The architecture is seen as a text of the philosophy, cosmology, and theology of medieval English culture. This book should be useful to anyone interested in architecture, architectural history, architectural theory, Gothic architecture, and medieval philosophy.
This is a new translation of Grosseteste's masterful commentary on the Biblical account of the Creation. Presenting a rich look at the unity of the medieval outlook, the Hexaemeron combines the learning of East and West in a distinctively English way.
In this book, the author examines Grosseteste's philosophical contribution and discusses his views on a wide range of topics--light and optics; the mathematical laws governing the movement of bodies; God, the mathematical Creator; the angels; human knowledge, certitude, observation and experience; religious symbolism and its interpretation; and the place of man within the social, natural, historical and providential orders.
