Anna Wood
Dr.Clemens & Dr.Whalen
Time and the Medieval Cosmos
When Robert Grosseteste Turned the Lights Off[WBE1]
Robert Grosseteste was a 13th century English philosopher and Bishop of Lincoln who studied an array of cosmic subjects including optics, color theory, and truth. Little is known about his whereabouts until his introduction into the church and his time spent teaching at Oxford. A great body of his works were generated between 1220 and 1235 which circulated about in Paris and England and spread across Europe. , In The Beginnings of Western Science, David Lindberg identifies the career of Grosseteste with the “growing knowledge of the Aristotelian corpus, a mixture of admiration and suspicion about its contents, and a tendency to read various Augustinian or Platonic ideas into the Aristotelian text.”[1]Although Grosseteste is most famous for his idea of light being the formative substance of the universe, he is less known for the evolution of this idea[WBE2] . Most sources on Grosseteste praise his ingenuity on the structure of light and the illumination of truth but go no further. Others portray him as a conformist to the church who abandoned his scientific principles of light and focused more on its beauty and biblical considerations. What few authors recognize are the striking consistencies throughout his scholastic and theological legacy. Robert Grosseteste is the perfect example of a philosopher who changed with the turbulent medieval times and modern science has yet to catch up.[WBE3]
Whether it’s focus is light, truth, science, theology or his personal life, nearly every source on Grosseteste presents the same story of his most famous work, De Luce: light is the structure of the cosmos, divine truth, and the action and goodness of God. [WBE4] Firstly, Avicenna and Averroes [WBE5] determined the need for an intermediate step in creation that imbued primary matter with three-dimensionality.[2] This became known as corporeal form, that which gives matter physical dimension. Grosseteste took these findings and identified this first form with light.[3] He posited that if the origin of the universe were a single point of light, it would infinitely expand in all directions in the shape of a sphere.[4][WBE6] By the law of the conservation of matter, as the radius of an object expands the density inversely decreases, thus in the expansion of the cosmos there must be a limit. Through condensation and refinement, the nine celestial spheres formed and moved about the Earth in perfect, uniform circular motion. [5] Grosseteste’s theory supported Aristotle’s geocentric model of the universe which was believed to be true at the time under the conditions that there was no vacuum and no cause that defined past from future[WBE7] .[6] Another common thread between the majority of articles on Grosseteste is that light illuminates the truth that God intends for humans to see. Humans, he claimed, are incapable of observing pure truth just as they are unable to look directly at the sun, so they intake created light.[7] Created light is a multiplicity of light observable to man through mental visions in the inner eye. Grosseteste proclaimed that scientific experimentation and intuition are one of the same ways of knowing.[8] Many articles discuss the impacts of these ideas on medieval and modern science and end there.
Andreas Speer, however[WBE8] [?],author of “Physics or Metaphysics” writes that Grosseteste was highly respected because of his “equivalence of physical light and spiritual light[WBE9] .”[9] He goes onto analyze Grosseteste’s physical and philosophical principles of light, including spiritual light, and science as a whole. Granted his paper intentionally leans towards the scientific aspect of Grosseteste, he evaluates the merit and logic of spiritual light. Surprisingly, there is negligible reference to his later works which continue on the subject of intuition. [WBE10] Similarly, Lindberg briefly discusses Grosseteste in that he was an “important illustration of the continuation of Platonic currents into the thirteenth century.”[10] Aside from being a revolutionary Neo-Platonic thinker on light and cosmology, he is sparsely mentioned. [WBE11] Again, this source is meant to capture the most important and intriguing ideas from medieval Europe, but the text is poised in way which limits the scope of Grosseteste sounding as if De Luce was essentially the end of his great cosmic scholasticism. Lastly, in “Robert Grosseteste on Light, Truth, and Experimentum,” Simon Oliver dedicates over twelve pages to the topic of truth in the mind of Grosseteste although in this he only writes in application to Grosseteste’s early works on the universe and knowledge.[11] What is spectacular, however, is that despite the authors’ fixations on the applications to the physical world and his major achievements, his later body of work can be clearly foreshadowed in his early thoughts on truth and unity.
Scholars seek to define Grosseteste’s work through a, scientific, physical lens which often means through experiment and mathematics. Grosseteste made a point to say that scientific knowledge and intuitive knowledge cannot be weighed against each other as they are equally intellectual.[12] He believes that forms of material constitution resolving into their founding principle are what create a hierarchy of all things.[13] One example of this is science. Scientific fields come on a spectrum where mathematics is the purest expression of science while physics is the opposite to that being the most open-ended field.[14] [WBE12] Every other study exists in between not discounting the validity of any subject, just to acknowledge that all things are relative. This resolution to true form is what Grosseteste seems to be conveying at each opportunity. [WBE13]
While Robert Grosseteste is a prominent figure when it comes to medieval cosmology, few scholars consider his entire corpus. [WBE14] In Lumen de Lumine: Light, God, and Creation in the thought of Robert Grosseteste, author Jack Cunningham, points out that Christianity witnessed an ascendence of papacy determined to “control the parameters of theology” and remarks the higher Grosseteste rose in the church, the more similar his words sounded to those of his church fathers.[15][WBE15] Although Cunningham never explicitly draws an opinionated connection between the two, he poses many circumstantial scenarios which would account for Grosseteste’s movements about Europe and friendships he was likely to have had leading him to have a successful career within the church. He concludes that the true reason why Grosseteste chose the Bishop’s path may never be known but the thirteenth century witnessed a great divide between the Church and heretic thinkers likely pressuring Grosseteste to choose his side wisely[WBE16] .[16] This may be the initial conclusion to draw that a life within the church as a scholar and a teacher provided more security, but in the same article Cecilia Panti strongly debates this argument in that Grosseteste was doing much more than just strategically ensuring his safety as a philosopher. He was evolving as a Neo-Platonist thinker. Panti asserts that De Luce was simply an “early stage of Neo-Platonic hylomorphic philosophy [which gave] way to Augustinian Exemplarism”.[17] [WBE17] Joseph Goering, historian from the University of Toronto calls this the shift between Grosseteste the scholastic philosopher to Grosseteste the theologian from 1230-1235.[18]
Light as corporeality was used in De Luce, De Operationibus, and Grosseteste’s commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. It lost [WBE18] its reputation in De Statu Causaum, De Unica Forma Omnium, and Hexaemeron. Grosseteste no longer spoke of corporeity in the 1230’s as the idea of emanating light gave way to a heretic existence. [19] Panti provides evidence that De Luce was an earlier work perhaps released in 1225, which would have left room for development by 1235 with the production of Hexaemeron. [20] [WBE19] This lack of corporeity marked when Grosseteste considered the first form to be simple and the separated exemplum of everything in the divine mind. In this way, De Luce “primarily explained the mechanics of creation” on the basis of Genesis while in Hexaemeron, [WBE20] Grosseteste transitioned his focus onto the aesthetics of light.[21] He did not reject light as a powerful, omnipresent force, but merely redirected his approach. Light could be seen as an intermediate step which acted to reveal what had already been made. Furthermore, in Grosseteste’s De Unica Forma, the first form is defined as God and God is goodness.[22] Just as light from light, God is goodness and goodness is God. Therefore, what is form is God. With the word of God, thus the will of God, comes the force of creation. The later corpus fundamentally rejected Aristotle whereas De Luce [WBE21] provided evidence for an Aristotelian universe. The overriding theme became that what makes matter perfect is not corporeity but the substance itself which is its divine exemplar, or a true reflection of its purpose in the mind of God.[23]
Grosseteste’s bold assertion that light was the universe’s creative life force was revolutionary and undoubtably respected, but like all human things, it changed with time. The exterior of Grosseteste’s treatises evolved drastically, but his internal idea remained constant, divine creation is the completeness of “the correspondence between exemplar and the exemplum.” [24] It’s important to go beyond what is the most sensational, or written on paper when it comes to reconstructing the best historical picture. Scholars from the Ordered Universe[WBE22] , a group of scientific and humanitarian researchers, claim such intellectual adjustments of “direction and emphasis are all subordinate to [Grosseteste’s] central enquiry into the world around him and how it should be understood and perceived,” and they could not be more accurate.[25]
Anna: I admire how you dug into RG and his ideas about light, creation etc. It’s really fitting stuff for our class. You did some fine work. There are points in essay, however, where a lot of “facts” get tossed in, with a clear thread or argument to frame them. There’s a newish book (2000) on Grosseteste, in Great Medieval Thinkers series, that might hjave helped you sort some of this out (https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/lib/unc/detail.action?docID=272627)
A-/90
Bibliography
Cunningham, Jack.2014. “Lumen de Lumine: Light, God and Creation in the thought of Robert Grosseteste.” In Bishop Robert Grosseteste and Lincoln Cathedral, edited by Nicholas Temple, John Shannon Hendrix, and Christian Frost,81-98. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
Giles Gasper, Tom McLeish, and Hannah E Smithson.2016. “Listening between the lines: medieval and modern science.” Palgrave Communications 2:1-12, Humanities & Social Sciences (16062).
Lindberg, David C.1992.The Beginnings of Western Science.Chicago:The University of Chicago Press.
Oliver, Simon.2004. “Robert Grosseteste on Light, Truth and Experimentum.“Vivarium42 (2):151-180.
Panti, Cecilia.2012. “The Evolution of the Idea of Corporeity in Robert Grosseteste’s Writings.”Robert Grosseteste:His Thought and Its Impact 21:111-139.
Speer, Andreas.1996. “Physics or Metaphysics? Some Remarks on Theory of Science and Light in Robert Grosseteste.” Aristotle in Britain during the Middle Ages: Proceedings of the International Conference at Cambridge 8(11):73-90.
[1] David Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,1992), 237
[2] Andreas Speer, “Physics or Metaphysics,” Aristotle in Britain during the Middle Ages: Proceedings of the International Conference at Cambridge, 8(1996): 74-77. Your notes need a little cleaning up.
[3] Simon Oliver, “Robert Grosseteste on Light, Truth and Experimentum,” Vivarium, 42 (2004):152.
[4] Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, 255
[5] Ibid. 257-260.
[6] Ibid, 256.
[7] Giles Gasper, Tom McLeish, and Hannah E Smithson, “Listening between the lines: medieval and modern science,”Palgrave Communications, 2 (September 2016):161-162.
[8] Speer, “Physics or Metaphysics,”88
[9] Speer, “Physics or Metaphysics,”83
[10] Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, 255
[11] Oliver, “Robert Grosseteste on Light, Truth and Experimentum,”151-154
[12] Ibid.152-154
[13] Speer, “Physics or Metaphysics,”84-85
[14] Ibid.
[15] Cunningham, “Lumen de Lumine: Light, God and Creation in the thought of Robert Grosseteste,”82-95
[16] Ibid.95
[17] Cunningham, “Lumen de Lumine: Light, God and Creation in the thought of Robert Grosseteste,”82
[18] Ibid.93
[19] Ibid.91
[20] Ibid.81-82
[21] Ibid.91
[22] Panti, “The Evolution of the Idea of Corporeity in Robert Grosseteste’s Writings,”132
[23] Panti, “The Evolution of the Idea of Corporeity in Robert Grosseteste’s Writings,”135
[24] Ibid.
[25] Giles Gasper, Tom McLeish, and Hannah E Smithson, “Listening between the lines: medieval and modern science,”4
[WBE1]Clever title, I like it…although I would think he turned them on?!
[WBE2]The connection between the BWS quotation you chose and this argument could be clearer. Did R G’s ideas about light read Platonic ideas into an Aristotelian text?
[WBE3]This needs some unpacking and explaining.
[WBE4]Great.
[WBE5]Who are these people? Identify.
[WBE6]Big Bang!?!
[WBE7]So this would fit into your point about the Aristotelian matrix. See comment above.
[WBE8]When you say “most stop there,” it seems to imply that Speer does not…maybe I misreading this? It’s unclear. If so, add “however”
[WBE9]I was going to comment above, all this stuff about vision and truth and light seems to set up some connections between “carnal” vision and “spiritual” vision. Very medieval.
[WBE10]Unclear what you mean here
[WBE11]Seems like this might belong in the intro? Seems to breaking up the flow here…
[WBE12]This is confusing: would Grosseteste have recognized this definition? You jumped from what RG believes to a modern definition of science without clearly sign-posting the leap.
[WBE13]I’m having trouble following this
[WBE14]Have you done enough research on the subject to confidently make this claim? Or maybe just the subset that you have read?
[WBE15]Interesting…a certain conformity as his career changed…
[WBE16]This could have been central to your essay, frankly: really interesting.
[WBE17]Wow, that’s a mouthful—meaning what, exactly?
[WBE18]Correct…what lost? Light?
[WBE19]There’s a lot being thrown in here, but I am having trouble discerning the main thread of your argument.
[WBE20]Which is about Creation…nice tie into our course.
[WBE21]A translation of this whole text is available online…be cool for you to dig into some of the actual source.
[WBE22]Nice work tracking this down