[In the following essay, Stevenson discusses Grosseteste's literary and academic activities between 1239 and 1244, including his efforts in promoting the revival of learning, his translations of The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and other writings.]

It might have been thought that Grosseteste's time, during the period which elapsed between 1239 and 1244, would have been so fully occupied with the reorganisation of religious work within his diocese, with the numerous disputes in which he was engaged, and with the active part he took in public affairs, that he would have found no opportunity either for literary occupations or for sustained interest in the fortunes of the University with which his career had been so closely interwoven. Such, however, was not the case. To the period in question must be assigned (1) his renewed effort to promote the revival of Greek studies; (2) his translation from Greek into Latin of the work known as the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, as well as of a treatise ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, and other writings;¹ (3) his contributions to the literature of rural and domestic economy; and (4) the action he took to obtain for the Chancellor and University of Oxford a royal privilege defining the extent of their jurisdiction.

Roger Bacon's assertion² that Grosseteste was not sufficiently acquainted with Greek to be able to translate out of that language until the latter portion of his life, taken in conjunction with other passages, merely means that he did not carry out actual and continuous translations until that period of his career, and that even then he required a certain amount of assistance. He had commenced the study of that language, as has been seen, whilst he was at the University, and had doubtless used, or at any rate consulted, the original text, in his lectures and commentaries on the Posterior Analytics and other writings of Aristotle. The importance, however, of his work as a pioneer of the study of Greek, lies rather in the impulse he gave to the efforts of others, than in the results he achieved himself. It was with that object that he summoned Greeks to England, and arranged for Greek manuscripts to be brought from Athens, Constantinople, and elsewhere.³ Some of the Greek teachers thus invited by Grosseteste still remained in this country at the time when Roger Bacon wrote his Compendium Studii Philosophiae in 1271.⁴ In the same work Bacon maintains that for seventy years no one but Grosseteste had enriched the Church by translations, as he had done in the case of Dionysius the Areopagite, St. John of Damascus, and some other sacred teachers.⁵ Trivet mentions in terms of special commendation, in addition to his Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, his Commentary on the Books of Dionysius, which he had “caused to be translated.” It is to Grosseteste and his assistants that must also be attributed the Latin version of the letters of St. Ignatius, brought to light by Bishop Ussher in 1646, and of which the late Bishop Lightfoot has given a luminous account.⁶ It is possible, too, that the renderings from the Lexicon of Suidas ascribed to Grosseteste by Boston of Bury also belong to this period of his life.⁷

The difference between the translations which he effected, when unaided, and those which he carried out with the assistance of others, may, perhaps, be inferred from a comparison of the description he gives of his method of translating the Greek work on the monastic state which he sent to the Abbot and convent of Peterborough,⁸ with the account given by various writers of the later versions connected with his name. In the former instance he says that he extracted as best he could the meaning of the words, and added what was necessary to elucidate their meaning. His later translations, such as those which belong to the greater part of the period now under review, which he effected with the aid of others working under him, are, on the other hand, extremely literal. Matthew Paris notes that the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs was rendered “verbo ad verbum,”⁹ and Bishop Lightfoot has given several instances of Grosseteste's close adherence to the original wording and even to the construction of the sentences.¹⁰ For the efforts thus made he is deserving of the highest praise, and the difficulties and the defects inseparable from the initial stages of the study of a language are in themselves a tribute to the novelty as well as to the importance of the undertaking.

It was in 1242, according to Matthew Paris and most chroniclers,¹¹ that Grosseteste, assisted by Nicholas the Greek, translated the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs into Latin. Nicholas, after being clerk to the Abbot of St. Albans, had become an inmate of the Bishop of Lincoln's household. It is probable, that Grosseteste had been acquainted with him during his university career at Oxford, and possibly at Paris. He appears to have resided at Oxford in 1238, as his name is to be found in the list of those who were bailed out by the Bishop after the attack on the Legate at Osney, and in the following year he had been presented to the living of Datchet by the Abbot and convent of St. Albans.¹² In view of the large number of Italians who held livings in England, though unacquainted with the English language, it is not remarkable that a Greek who had studied at Oxford, and spent apparently most of his life in this country, should have been made a rector; and it must be borne in mind that the Latin Empire existing at that time at Constantinople formed an additional link between East and West, and rendered intercourse more easy.¹³ Even Armenians came to England during that period: an Armenian archbishop, for example, visited St. Albans, one of their bishops died at St. Ives, others of that race travelled all the way to this country in 1250 to pay their respects at his tomb, and some found their way to St. Albans two years later, and related many things concerning Mount Ararat and the ark, as well as respecting the persecutions inflicted upon them by the Tartars.¹⁴

Grosseteste's principal English collaborator was his own Archdeacon of Leicester, John de Basingstoke, who is described as “a man of great experience in the ‘trivium’ and the ‘quadrivium,’ and fully educated in Greek and Latin literature.”¹⁵ He had studied at Athens, and it was through him that Grosseteste obtained a copy of the Greek original of the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs for the purpose of translation. John de Basingstoke also introduced, according to Matthew Paris, Greek numerals into England, and instructed his intimate friends in their use and significance,¹⁶ and composed a grammar called the Greek Donatus, based on a work written in that language. He was instrumental in bringing to England many valuable manuscripts.

Matthew Paris relates the following curious story which John de Basingstoke told to a friend of his with reference to his sojourn at Athens: “There was a certain damsel, daughter of the Archbishop of Athens,¹⁷ Constantina by name, hardly twenty years of age, endowed with every virtue and well acquainted with the difficulties of the ‘trivium’ and ‘quadrivium’; for which reason, on account of her eminence in knowledge, the said Master John used in jest to call her another Catherine. She it was who was the teacher of Master John, and all the good he acquired in the way of science, as he often asserted, he had obtained from her, although he had studied and read for a long time in Paris. This damsel was able to foretell, with unfailing foresight, pestilence, thunderstorms, eclipses, and, what was more remarkable, earthquakes.”

Grosseteste's translation of the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the sons of Jacob, produced a great sensation at the time, as is shown by the references in almost all the chronicles, and was frequently printed in later ages.¹⁸ Of the English versions of his work, which subsequently appeared, nearly thirty editions are enumerated in Hazlitt's bibliographical collections. It is, perhaps, a matter for regret that he should have devoted so much care to what was unquestionably a spurious, though an early and highly interesting, work.¹⁹ The Greek original purported to be a version of one of the books of the Hebrew Scriptures, which had been suppressed or secreted by the Jews on account of its prophetic references to Christianity, and that is why Matthew Paris says that Grosseteste's desire was to confute the Jews, thus bringing his purpose into harmony with that of his De Cessatione Legalium.²⁰ Grosseteste was certainly misled, in common with many others, into a belief in the authenticity of the work he was translating; and in a letter to Henry the Third,²¹ who had addressed to him the inquiry, What does anointing add to the royal dignity? he quotes as authoritative, in the course of his reply, a passage from the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs on the superiority of the priesthood to the kingly office. However, as Dr. Pauli well remarks,²² the revival of learning in the thirteenth century commenced, like that of the fifteenth, with what was least valuable and least profitable. It was, in fact, the impetus given to intellectual progress by the opening up of an access to new modes of thought and sources of information, which constituted the great step in advance, apart from the particular materials which were in the first instance brought into requisition.

Of a lighter but not less useful character were the attempts made by the Bishop during that period to spread sound notions respecting the management of landed estates and of domestic households. His interest in agriculture had doubtless been acquired in his early days at Stradbroke, and had never completely died out. Walter of Henley's Treatise on Husbandry, written at some time during the first half of the thirteenth century, was translated from French into English either by him or under his auspices.²³ The need for a translation shows that some of those for whose use the work was intended, whether lords or bailiffs, were unacquainted with, or at any rate imperfectly versed in the former language; though, perhaps, the object was to familiarise a wider circle with the contents. Nothing is known definitely with regard to the personality of Walter of Henley beyond the fact, which he mentions, that he had served the office of bailiff; but the title of one of the manuscripts of his treatise states that he became a friar preacher.²⁴ If it were not for that reference, it might be permissible to conjecture that he was identical with the W. de Hemingburgh, or Hemingberga, who was one of Grosseteste's clerks, and a correspondent of Adam Marsh, in view of his connection with the Bishop of Lincoln, and also seeing that Henley in Oxfordshire was sometimes called Henneburgh, or some other name of similar sound. Adam Marsh's letter to him,²⁵ recommending the messenger of the Archbishop of Canterbury to his good offices, implies, however, that he was a Franciscan and not a Dominican; and the hypothesis must therefore be abandoned, unless it be assumed that on the above-mentioned title-page the words “Friar Preacher” were inserted by mistake for “Friar Minor.” In any case, Walter of Henley's work, whoever the author may have been, was one of real importance, and was regarded for several centuries as being of considerable utility. Numerous manuscripts of it are still extant; it was translated into Welsh and Latin, and the English version was printed by Wynkyn de Worde. The authority for the statement that the latter was due to the Bishop of Lincoln, is not the mere ipse dixit of Bale, in his Scriptores Britanniae: the title of a fifteenth-century manuscript²⁶ distinctly states that the work was written in French, and translated into English by Robert Grosseteste, and other manuscripts contain the same account of its origin.²⁷

With greater certainty, however, can the Rules, written in French, which bear the name of Les Reules Seynt Roberd be ascribed to him. They are described in the title as “The Rules that the good Bishop of Lincoln, Saint Robert Grosseteste, made for the Countess of Lincoln to guard and govern her Lands and Hostel: whoever will keep these Rules well, will be able to live on his means, and keep himself and those belonging to him.” The Countess of Lincoln in question was Margaret, widow of John de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who died on the 22nd of June 1240.²⁸ Various manors were assigned by the King for her maintenance until her dowry out of her husband's lands should be set forth.²⁹ She afterwards married, in 1242, Walter Marshall, seventh Earl of Pembroke, the same who two years later served with Grosseteste on the famous Committee of twelve. If, therefore, the Bishop's rules were written for her guidance during her widowhood, as is most in accordance with probability, they must have been composed between 1240 and 1242. Pegge points out³⁰ that Grosseteste's acquaintance with the de Lacys may have commenced at the time when he was Archdeacon, and John de Lacy, Constable of Chester. The Countess' mother was also connected with Chester, as she was the sister of Ranulf, seventh earl of that name, with whom Grosseteste may possibly, too, have come in contact during his tenure of the archdeaconry of Leicester, as Ranulf held for several years the Montfort property in that district through a grant made by King John,³¹ and is recorded to have kept Christmas of 1223 in the town of Leicester.³²

Walter of Henley's Treatise and Grosseteste's Rules cover different ground. The former deals with the two-field and the three-field system, and the practical details connected with the general management of an estate, on the supposition, as Professor Cunningham points out, that the lord or the bailiff would look into everything himself. The Rules, on the other hand, were intended for the personal use of the Countess of Lincoln, who could not look into everything with her own eyes; and they deal not only with production, but with the consumption of products in the household, and explain the methods by which a large number of retainers can be directed to the best purpose. Both treatises, however, have this in common, that they are concerned with a condition of things in which comparatively little was bought or sold, as the difficulties of communication rendered the interchange of heavy commodities expensive and often impossible, so that the object was to work the estate, as far as was feasible, on self-supporting principles. At the same time a change was gradually coming over the management of estates. The great Benedictine monasteries were setting the example of improvements in tillage, the Cistercians were producing wool in large quantities for purposes of export, and the commercial activity encouraged by the Crusades was gradually affecting the methods of rural economy. Under the old state of things the villain worked, say, three days a week on the domain land, besides extra days at harvest-time, and performed sundry incidental duties, in return for which he had the benefit of his holding of about thirty acres, stocked with a yoke of oxen and half-a-dozen sheep.³³ Under the new order of things, the custom, on the part of the villains, of discharging their obligations in money, in lieu of labour or produce, was gradually spreading. The twofold effect of the change was to allow them more time to look after their own holdings, and to introduce the necessity for the use of hired labour on the home farm or domain land, not, indeed, to such an extent as to supersede altogether the services of the villains, but in such a way as to diminish their importance, to concentrate the attention of the lord upon the requirements of the home farm, and to necessitate the keeping of accounts. Walter of Henley and Grosseteste wrote during the transitional period, and their works must accordingly have been of the utmost practical value. The obligations of the villains were generally stated in terms of money: they might, however, be discharged wholly in service or in kind, or else be commuted in their entirety for a cash payment; or, again, a middle course might be adopted, according as the special needs of the district or the will of the lord might direct.

Grosseteste's Rules show how a lord or lady shall know in each manor the rents, customs, usages, services, franchises, fees, and tenements, and tell the live and dead stock; they indicate the best way of dealing with seneschals and bailiffs; the method of making the various estates self-sufficing, leaving a certain surplus for sale; when the granges should be shut and opened, and how the accounts should be examined. Grosseteste then deals, in a number of brief maxims, with the subject of household economy and the management of servants, hospitality, alms-giving, dress, and the service at table. In one rule he refers to the practice prevailing in his own palace, where “each quarter of wheat makes nine score loaves of white and brown bread, together of the weight of five marks each, and the hostel at meat is served with two meats, large and full, to increase the alms, and with two lighter dishes also full for all the freemen, and at supper with one dish not so substantial, and also light dishes followed by cheese; and if strangers come to supper they shall be served with more according as they have need.” After some further injunctions of that kind he reverts to the subject of agriculture, and touches upon the mode of threshing and selling corn, and the importance of keeping plenty of cows and sheep: the wool of a thousand sheep in good pasture ought, he says, to yield at least fifty marks a year, in scant pasture forty, and in coarse and poor pasture thirty; and he observes that the return from cows and sheep in the way of cheese is in itself worth a considerable sum, without counting calves and lambs, and apart from the manure, all of which help the growth of corn and fruit. The minuteness with which he enters into questions likely to be of assistance to the Countess may be inferred from the fact that he even advises her when and where to make her purchases. “I recommend,” he says, “that at two seasons of the year you make your principal purchases, that is to say, your wines and your wax and your wardrobe at the fair of St.Botolph what you shall use in Lindsey and in Norfolk, in the vale of Belvoir, in the country of Caversham, in that of Southampton for Winchester, and in that of Somerset at Bristol; your robes purchase at St. Ive's.” Grosseteste's Rules, being intended for private use, did not attain to the wide circulation enjoyed by the translation of Walter of Henley's Treatise with which he is credited. They were also translated at a later date into English, and a portion of them is printed in the Monumenta Franciscana.³⁴ The translator was, however, under the impression that they were intended by the Bishop for the management of his own household and estates, whereas they were really addressed to the Countess of Lincoln, or Nicole, as the city was called in Norman French; though it is possible, as Professor Cunningham points out,³⁵ that he composed separate sets of Rules, similar in character, for his own household and for her guidance. Apart from the light they throw on the condition of agriculture and of estate management at that time, and on Grosseteste's sustained interest in those questions, they reflect credit on the painstaking good nature with which he placed his experience at the disposal of those who had most need of it.

It has been seen how Grosseteste's thoughtfulness for the welfare of the University of Oxford continued unabated after his promotion to the See of Lincoln. In 1238 he defended its liberties, and allayed the differences which had arisen in consequence of the attack upon Cardinal Otho at Osney. In 1240, owing to a “town and gown” disturbance, a good many scholars migrated to Cambridge.³⁶ In 1244 he was called upon to take a step which may not, perhaps, have appeared of much importance at the time, but which produced a lasting effect on the constitution and the jurisdiction of the University. In that year a serious riot occurred, probably in connection with some question of usury. The clerks invaded the Jewry, broke into the houses, and sacked the contents, with the consequence that forty-five of them were sent to prison. They were, however, released by the king at the instance of Grosseteste, as no direct evidence could be brought against them showing that they had been guilty of felony.³⁷ A few weeks later a royal charter was procured, doubtless through Grosseteste's efforts, by which the Jews of Oxford were forbidden to take more than twopence in the pound per week as interest from the scholars, and a definite jurisdiction was granted to the Chancellor in all actions concerning debts, rents, and prices, transactions relating to horses, clothing, and provisions, and all other “contracts of movables” in which one party was a clerk.³⁸ The charter involved the local recognition of a principle for which Grosseteste had often contended on wide and general grounds. Although it did not include—as was the case with the charter of 1255, issued two years after Grosseteste's death—criminal jurisdiction over laymen for breach of the peace, its immediate effect was to confer upon the Chancellor a civil jurisdiction in addition to the spiritual jurisdiction which he already possessed by virtue of the ordinary ecclesiastical law as the Bishop's representative.³⁹ Its indirect effect was that, in course of time, the Chancellor became less and less of a Bishop's officer, and more and more a president of the University. His authority was strengthened, and the self-governing power of the educational organisation correspondingly increased. In Grosseteste's time matters constantly came before the Bishop of Lincoln, which in later years were left to the University authorities on the spot; and, although the explanation is to be found partly in his commanding eminence as a man, and partly in the special character of his previous connection with Oxford, it must also be ascribed in some measure to the fact that the Chancellor's powers were merely delegated to him by the Bishop.

Thus it was that, on the occasion of some disputes which occurred seven years later in 1251, when Henry the Third and his Queen were on a visit to Oxford, two clerks happened to have been imprisoned for certain offences, whereupon the “whole body of scholars”⁴⁰ requested that all clerks, whatever might be the offence of which they were accused, should be surrendered out of the royal prison into the hands of the Chancellor; “for,” writes Adam Marsh to Grosseteste, “the King has granted to them that it should be done in the case of offences which the Chancellor, as the Bishop's delegate, is able to visit with condign punishment; but in the case of serious crimes, requiring either deposition or degradation, the King has only consented that incarcerated clerks should be handed over to the Bishop, or his official, or a vicar specially appointed for the purpose. … The King has in this instance released the two clerks aforesaid unconditionally at the request of the scholars. The masters, however, had ceased their lectures for several days, and they have not yet resumed them.” Mr. Rashdall notes that “so long as the See of Lincoln was filled by Robert Grosseteste, the most distinguished son that the University has yet produced, almost unbroken harmony prevailed between the University and the Diocesan,” and that it was not until the accession of his successor, Henry de Lexington, that the first disagreements of any consequence broke out. Doubtless, as he also points out, the distance of Lincoln from Oxford tended to render the University gradually and at last wholly independent of episcopal control, and differentiated it in that respect from many of the mediæval universities of continental Europe.

Grosseteste's correspondence with Adam Marsh shows the continuous interest he felt in the organisation of the Oxford curriculum, and the management of the affairs of the University. He was frequently asked to help individual scholars by letters of recommendation or by pecuniary assistance, and appeals to his generosity were never made in vain. Memorials forwarded by the masters and scholars were often transmitted to the Bishop through Adam Marsh, and it was through him that Grosseteste communicated to them his wishes with respect to certain articles which they were to draw up for the government of the University.⁴¹ It was on that occasion, in all likelihood, that a committee of seven was appointed to frame what is known as the first statute of the University, enacted in 1252 or 1253, which provided that no one should be admitted to inception or theology who had not previously been a regent in arts, and read one book of the Canon or the Sentences, and preached publicly in the University.⁴² Questions relating to the use of a University seal were also transmitted to Grosseteste: Ralph de Sempingham, for instance, the Chancellor, “to whom he had committed the duty of governing the congregation of the scholars of Oxford,” is rebuked by him for making use of that symbol.⁴³ In 1248 Grosseteste writes to Robert Marsh, his official,⁴⁴ with reference to the murder of a scholar who was passing by St. Martin's Church, Oxford, and orders the murderers to be excommunicated, and to be punished in accordance with the agreement which had been made between the University and the town, under the auspices of Nicholas of Tusculum, the Papal legate, in 1214.⁴⁵

Of greater interest is the fact that Grosseteste was the first who instituted the loan chests, which were the nearest approach presented at that time to the scholarships and exhibitions of a later date. It was by an ordinance of his that the annual fine imposed upon the town of Oxford by the Legate Nicholas in 1214,⁴⁶ and which in 1219 had been transferred by arrangement to the Abbot and convent of Eynsham,⁴⁷ was applied in 1240 to the establishment of a University chest at St. Frideswyde's, where Christ Church now stands.⁴⁸ The immediate object was to enable poor scholars to borrow without interest for a reasonable period of time, and to keep them from falling into the hands of the Jewish and other usurers. The plan was that would-be borrowers should deposit some pledge, such as an article of clothing, or a cup, or a book, exceeding in value the amount of the loan, and liable to be sold by auction if the pledge was not redeemed within the year. The strictness of the rule appears to have been relaxed in specially deserving cases. The idea gained ground rapidly, and not only was the St. Frideswyde's chest increased by private donations and bequests, but numerous other chests were founded at Oxford in subsequent years. It is to the University chest thus established that Adam Marsh refers in the letter⁴⁹ in which he asks R. de St. Agatha, who was Chancellor in 1256, to allow a certain Symon de Valentinis to borrow forty pounds from the funds of the University of Oxford, deposited through the benefaction of Master William of Durham. As that scholar and patron of learning had died in 1249, the reference shows that, within nine years of Grosseteste's institution of the University chest, it had already begun to be augmented by bequests, which may, perhaps, in certain cases have been earmarked for special purposes.

It was Grosseteste, again, who obtained from Innocent IV., in May 1246, a bull to prevent any of the scholars at Oxford from teaching in any Faculty unless they had been examined as at Paris, and approved by the Bishop or his deputies.⁵⁰ In the same year, in all likelihood,⁵¹ he wrote his celebrated letter⁵² to the Regents of Theology at Oxford, exhibiting at one and the same time the deep interest he took in the course of studies, and the predominant importance he attached to a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. In that letter he holds up to them as an example worthy of imitation the system of teaching adopted at Paris, and insists upon the need for ensuring that the foundation-stones of learning should be truly such, and not merely called by that name, and that non-fundamentals should not be mistaken for fundamentals. Hence he argues that, as the Scriptures must be the basis of all their teaching, and as they can best be inculcated at the morning hour, presumably because the mind is then freshest and most receptive, the subjects of all their lectures at that time should be taken from the New Testament or from the Old, in order, he says, that, “like the scribe who is instructed into the kingdom of heaven, you may be like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.” For other matters, such as aids to Biblical study, and the study of the Fathers, other opportunities should be selected. Grosseteste here emphasises the importance of Biblical study above other departments of theology, and takes his stand, as on other occasions, on the ‘auctoritas irrefragabilis Scripturæ.’ Although the letter, however, relates mainly to the order and relative importance of the studies, and must be interpreted, not as an attempt to eliminate any branches of knowledge, but merely as an effect to subordinate them to what he deemed the primary object to be pursued, it appears at the same time to differentiate Grosseteste's attitude from that of the new scholasticism which endeavoured to combine theology with philosophy. When Roger Bacon wrote in 1267, that new scholasticism had completely captured the Paris theological schools, the methods of which Grosseteste had approved some twenty-one, or it may be some twenty-seven years earlier. In Grosseteste's estimation, as in that of the Fathers of the Western Church, and of the pre-scholastic writers, the two streams of theology and of philosophy flowed in separate channels, and were not to be intermingled. It is true that, in his teaching, he finds himself unable to adhere rigidly to that doctrine, and his influence is to be discerned in the writings of the schoolmen, as well as in those of the men whose methods are most akin to his own; and it must be borne in mind that both Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas eliminate the essential mysteries of Christian dogma from the domain of metaphysical discussion, assigning to them the province of faith. In the main, Grosseteste may be said to represent a conservative force in theology, whilst in other departments of thought and learning, as well as in the political sphere, he represents a progressive force. In the former case he acknowledges the reason of authority, in the latter he bows to the authority of reason.⁵³

Notes

1. Grosseteste's translation of the Mystical Theology, with a commentary, is the only one of his works relating to the author known as Dionysius the Areopagite which has been printed. The commentary is in the Opera Dionysii Areopagitae, Argent., 1503, pp. 264b-271b. He translated other works of that writer, and commented on them.—Tanner's Bibliotheca; Wharton's Anglia Sacra, ii. p. 347; Felten, p. 75.

2. Opus Tertium, ed. Brewer, p. 91. See p. 23.

3. R. Bacon, ibid.

4. Ibid. p. 434.

5. Ibid. p. 474. Trivet, p. 243, etc.

6. Lightfoot's Apostolic Fathers, part ii. vol. i. pp. 76 sqq. It is what is known as the Latin version of the Middle Recension of St. Ignatius' Epistles. Lightfoot thinks that the circulation of Grosseteste's translation was probably confined to the Franciscan convent at Oxford, to which he bequeathed his books. John Tyssington and William Woodford, both of whom quote the Latin version of those Epistles, belonged to that convent in the thirteenth century. A MS. in the library at Tours, mentioned in Dorange's Catalogue des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque de Tours, and examined by Canon Armitage Robinson on behalf of Bishop Lightfoot, distinctly ascribes the translation to Grosseteste, pp. 77, 274.

7. The author of the above-named version of the Epistles of St. Ignatius shows acquaintance with Suidas. Lightfoot, ibid. p. 85.

8. “Extractum pro modulo meo verborum sensum, adjectis alicubi paucis ad dilucidationem in hanc paginam redigens, vobis destinare curavi.”

9. Hist. Maj. iv. 232.

10. Apostolic Fathers, l.c. Cp. Felten, p. 86.

11. Hist. Maj. iv. 232; R. Bacon, p. 474; Trivet, p. 243; Salimbene, Chronicle of Parma (Parma, 1856), p. 99; Joh. de Oxenedes, ed. Ellis, p. 171, etc. Matthew Paris with his own hand transcribed a copy of the work for the use of the Benedictine monks at St. Albans. It is in the Royal MS. 4 D. vii. British Museum, together with a “tractatus quem episcopus Lincolniensis Robertus transtulit de Graeco in Latinum, de probatione virginitatis Beatae Mariae et sacerdotio Jesu.” The colophon says: “Hoc quoque scriptum adquisivit frater Matthaeus Parisiensis ab episcopo memorato et ad usus claustralium manu sua scripsit; cujus anima in pace requiescat. Amen.” See Sir T. Duffus Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue, iii. p. 57, and plate 9 of the facsimiles at the commencement of the volume.

12. For the evidence see Pegge, pp. 163, 164.

13. It lasted from 1203 to 1261.

14. Hist. Maj. iii. 163, 164; v. 116, 340, 341. Dean Stanley (Eastern Church, p. 8) states that the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs forms part of the canon of the Armenian Church. If so, Grosseteste's belief in its authenticity may have been confirmed by one of the Armenian visitors to this country. Malan, however, in his Philosophy of Truth, pp. 176 sqq., disputes the statement. See note on p. 240 of the present work.

15. Hist. Maj. v. 284 sqq.

16. See Pegge's Appendix 11. The symbols are drawn by Matthew Paris, Hist. Maj. v. 285.

17. Michael Acominatus.—Finlay's History of Greece, ed. Tozer, iv. 134. Luard also refers to the Oriens Christianus, ii. 174.

18. E.g. at Haguenau in 1532 and Paris in 1539, and in Galland's Bibliotheca Patrum, i. 193 sqq. An edition without printer's name, place, or date, black letter, was probably printed about 1520. Fabricius (ed. Mansi, Padua) mentions an edition printed at Vienna in 1483.

19. On the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, see the works of the Rev. R. Sinker, D.D., who published the text in 1869, with notes, etc., an English translation in 1872, and a valuable appendix in 1879. He regards it as one of the earliest monuments of Christian literature, written not later than the middle of the second century, and perhaps before the end of the first, and holds that it can hardly have had a Hebrew original, though intended primarily for Hebrew readers. The Greek MS. which Grosseteste actually used, and which was sent to him at his request by John de Basingstoke from Athens, is probably the one in the Library of the University of Cambridge, to which it was left by Archbishop Parker, numbered Ff. i. 24.

20. Hist. Maj. iv. 232, 233; v. 285.

21. Letter 124. See Selden's Titles of Honour, part i. ch. 8. Arthur Taylor's Treatise of the Anointing and Crowning of the Kings and Queens of England. Besides the Holy Roman Emperor, only four Kings received unction in addition to coronation: the Kings of Jerusalem, France, England, and Sicily. Dean Stanley suggests (Memorials of Westminster) that Henry the Third's recollection of his twofold coronation may have prompted the question he addressed by the “young king” to Grosseteste. Letter 124 must, however, have been written after 1245, when at least twenty-nine years had elapsed since the King's accession.

22. Page 41.

23. “Walter of Henley, etc.,” ed. for the Royal Historical Society by Miss Lamond, with introduction by Prof. Cunningham (London, 1890), contains Walter of Henley's Husbandry, the English translation of that work attributed to Grosseteste, an anonymous Husbandry, a Seneschaucie, and Grosseteste's Rules (Les Reules Seynt Roberd).

24. Prof. Cunningham's Introduction, p. 21.

25. Mon. Francisc. p. 255.

26. Sloane MSS. 686, f. 1; Cunningham, Introd. p. 31.

27. Cunningham, Introduction, pp. 37, 39, 41. A copy of Wynkyn de Worde's extremely rare edition is in the Cambridge Library.

28. Hist. Maj. iv. 34.

29. Dugdale's Baronage, quoted by Pegge, p. 95.

30. Page 95.

31. Bémont, Simon de Montfort, p. 3, and the authorities there quoted.

32. Hist. Maj. iii. 83.

33. Cunningham, Introduction, p. 10.

34. Mon. Francisc. p. 582.

35. Introduction, p. 43.

36. Hist. Maj. iv. 7.

37. The Chronicle of Osney (Ann. Monast. i. 91) says: “Ad instantiam Sancti Roberti Lincolniensis episcopi jussu regis fuerunt liberati, eo quod nullus impeteret eos de pace regis fracta vel alio crimine.” T. Wykes' Chronicle, on the same page, says: “Per dominum Robertum Lincolniensem episcopum liberatisunt omnes, quia nullus apparuit qui eos directe posset impetere de crimine feloniae.” See also the Chron. of Abingdon, ed. Halliwell (Reading, 1844), p. 5.

38. Patent Rolls, 28 Henry III. m. 6, a. 7; Rashdall, vol. ii. pp. 393, 394. The deed of acknowledgment was executed at Reading, and signed and sealed on behalf of the University by the Prior of the Friars Preachers, the Minister of the Friars Minors, the Chancellor of the University, the Archdeacons of Lincoln and Cornwall, and Friar Robert Bacon.—Little's Grey Friars in Oxford, p. 8.

39. Rashdall, l.c.

40. “Universitas scholarium,” Mon. Francisc. p. 115.

41. Mon. Francisc. pp. 99, 346.

42. Ibid. p. 346; Anstey's Munimenta Academica, p. 25. Most writers have assigned the discussions to 1251, and the statute to 1252; but Mr. Little (Grey Friars at Oxford, p. 38, note) gives strong reasons for preferring 1252 as the date of the former, and 1253 as the date of the latter.

43. Mon. Francisc. p. 100.

44. Letter 129.

45. Munimenta Academica, pp. 1 sqq.

46. Munimenta Academica, p. 1.

47. Ibid. p. 4. Cp. Lincoln Cathedral Statutes, ed. Bradshaw and Wordsworth, part ii. introduction p. 67.

48. Munimenta Academica, p. 8; Rashdall, ii. p. 350.

49. Mon. Francisc. p. 257.

50. Bliss, Calendar of the Papal Registers, i. p. 225; Wood (i. p. 236) was under the impression that the bull only applied to degrees in arts.

51. Luard, Introd. to the Letters, p. 129. Wood attributes the letter to 1240.

52. Letter 123.

53. Since the present chapter has been in the press, the Rev. Dr. Sukius Baronian, whom I have consulted with regard to the hypothesis suggested in note 4, has informed me that Mr. Malan's view that the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs never formed part of the canon of the Armenian Church, is correct. This is shown (1) by the statement of Moses of Khorene in the fifth century (Hist. of Armenia, iii. 53) that the number of books of the Old Testament then translated into Armenian amounted to twenty-two, the same as now, a figure which does not admit of the inclusion of the work in question, and (2) by the fact that it has never been authorised to be read at the services of the Church, and has not been made the subject of a commentary. At the same time Dean Stanley's view was undoubtedly based upon the occurrence of the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs in some Armenian copies of the Scriptures of comparatively late date, and it is quite possible that some of the Armenian visitors to England in the thirteenth century may have been guided by those copies.