at the Funerall of John Caws, one of the Magistrates of … Plymouth,' 4to, London, 1645.
- 'The Buddings and Blossomings of Old Truths; or severall practicall points of Divinity, gathered out of … John iii. 22, ad finem,' 8vo, London, 1656, edited by John Welden, a presbyterian minister, of Stratcley in Ermington, Devonshire.
He wrote two other treatises, 'The Anatomy of the Heart' and 'On Sacred Things.'
[Authorities cited; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
GROSSETESTE, ROBERT (d. 1253), bishop of Lincoln from 1235 to 1253, was born probably in 1175 in Suffolk (Trivet, p. 242). From what Trivet mentions in this place, and the report of his own words given in the Lanercost chronicle (p. 44, 'humili de patre et matre sum natus'), he was of humble origin; indeed he was reproached with this by the canons of Lincoln in the heat of their quarrel with him. The earliest mention of his name is in a letter of Giraldus Cambrensis (Symbolum Electorum, 18, i. 249, ed. Brewer), introducing him to William de Vere, bishop of Hereford, written certainly before December 1199, when the bishop died, which speaks of his knowledge both in law and medicine. He was sent by his friends to Oxford, and afterwards probably studied at Paris, as in his directions to the regents at Oxford he bids them follow the course of study pursued there. He afterwards returned to Oxford, became 'rector scholarum' and chancellor. In 1224 he became the first rector of the Franciscans at Oxford, and it was then that he laid the foundation of his knowledge of Aristotle and his skill in preaching. Eccleston (Monumenta Franciscana, i.37) speaks of the influence he had over the Franciscans, and of how much their powers of speaking and preaching were due to his teaching. His earliest preferments seem to have been the archdeaconry of Wilts (1214 and 1220), the archdeaconry of Northampton (1221), held with the prebend of Empingham in Lincoln Cathedral, which was afterwards exchanged for the archdeaconry of Leicester. He held also at different times the churches of St. Margaret's, Leicester, and Abbotsley in Huntingdonshire. In 1231, after a severe attack of fever, he resigned all his preferments, except the Lincoln prebend.
On the death of Hugh de Wells, bishop of Lincoln, in February 1235, the chapter elected Grosseteste as his successor. There was a difficulty as to the place of his consecration. The monks of Canterbury claimed as their right that he should be consecrated at Canterbury; the archbishop (St. Edmund) wished it elsewhere, and though Grosseteste was willing to give way, the archbishop was firm, and persuaded the monks to consent to his wishes, on the understanding it should not be used as a precedent. He was consecrated at Reading on 3 June (according to Wendover) or 17 June (Annal. Winton and Wikes). On being thus put in charge of the enormous diocese, which then contained the archdeaconries of Lincoln, Leicester, Stowe, Buckingham, Huntingdon, Northampton, Oxford, and Bedford, he at once set himself to reform all the abuses which his predecessors had left, directing his clergy to put down anything that tended to evil, such as games and parish processions leading to strife, drinking bouts, desecration of churchyards by their being used for games, private marriages, carelessness of mothers towards their children, the feast of fools, &c. In the first year of his episcopacy he visited the monasteries of his diocese, and removed no fewer than seven abbots and four priors. We find him at Oxford helping to allay a quarrel between the clergy and towns-people. In 1236 he witnessed the confirmation of Magna Charta. The next year he took part in the great London council under the legate Otho, and in obedience to its resolutions sent his constitutions through his diocese. He still kept up his connection with Oxford, and protected the students who had got into trouble for their attack on the legate Otho. It was in this year (1237) that he escaped with difficulty from an attempt to poison him, through the skill of his friend and physician, John of St. Albans [see John].
In 1239 began the quarrel between the bishop and the Lincoln chapter which occupied so many years of his life. Grosseteste asserted his right to visit the chapter as well as the rest of the diocese; the dean and canons asserted their independence. Otho thought he had only to appear on the scene to settle the whole matter; an appeal was made to Canterbury, but it soon became evident that the pope was the only authority that would be accepted as final. The chapter issued a mandate to the vicars and chaplains ministering in the prebends and churches belonging to them to disobey the bishop if he attempted to visit them. The bishop required them to recall this, and on their refusal suspended the dean, precentor, and subdean. They and some other canons started for Rome. They waited for the bishop in London, and while there agreed to apply to the pope to commit the decision of the question to three arbitrators, the Bishop of Worcester and the archdeacons of Worcester and Sudbury. But this came to nothing. The canons preached against the bishop in the cathedral. On one occasion in a sermon on the bishop's oppres-
