Robert Grosseteste – författare

Grosseteste is a crucially important figure in the history of English learning, representing the last flowering of a fully native tradition of scholarship. His Hexaemeron is rare among works of this period in giving such a wide and deep insight into the medieval world view. A work of Grosseteste's early maturity (probably completed around 1235) it is a commentary on the early chapters of Genesis, on the six days of creation, and gives him a context for expounding his attitude to theology, to the world, and to the place of human beings in that world. It is a masterly compilation and reconciliation of conflicting Greek and Latin authorities, handled with great confidence, which gives a supremely rich account of the unity of medieval learning, where the study of God includes the study of the whole world.

Robert Grosseteste was an unusual and exceptional man: from the lowest social class yet greatly admired by kings and popes; a scientist but also a philosopher and theologian; a talented administrator and a successful teacher; a pastor doggedly devoted to the care of his flock but also a scholar dedicated to the translation of early Christian fathers and Aristotle; loyal to the pope but fearless and bold in calling for the reform of the curia.On the Cessation of the Laws directly reflects the profundity and originality of Grosseteste's theological work and indirectly reveals his pastoral concerns. The work consists of four books. In the first, Grosseteste offers arguments mostly from Scripture against the position that he wishes to defend and then counters these arguments with a lengthy treatment of the whole economy of creation and salvation and the place of the Scriptures, Old and New, in it. The second attempts to show from clear Old Testament texts that the crucified Jesus was the savior promised in the Law. The third is dominated by theological arguments for the incarnation of Christ even if humanity had not sinned, and the fourth addresses a cluster of questions that follow upon the death of the Law.In On the Cessation of the Laws, Grosseteste draws out the theological, christological, and soteriological issues implicit in the question of the relationship between the Old and New Covenants.

Published as part of the Rolls Series in 1861, these collected letters date mainly from 1235-53, when, as bishop of Lincoln, their author presided over the largest diocese in England. Both a scientist and a theologian, Robert Grosseteste (c.1170-1253) boasts what the medieval historian R. W. Southern describes as 'a rarely paralleled breadth of intellectual interests'. His letters are invaluably illustrative of the social conditions of the time. He writes heatedly and earnestly on such topics as the laws concerning illegitimacy, the condition of the Jews and the liberties of the Church, with a violence of opinion that was 'balanced, indeed prompted, by a deep concern for the souls of ordinary people'. Henry Richards Luard (1825-91) puts Grosseteste's writing into context in his preface, while useful summaries of each letter in the contents list, and commentary provided in the side-notes, make the Latin text accessible to modern readers.