Robert Grosseteste c. 1175 – 1253

Robert Grosseteste was an English statesman, scholastic philosopher, theologian, and bishop of Lincoln. He served as the first chancellor of the University of Oxford and as the leading translator into Latin of the Greek philosophical and patristic heritage of his time. His treatises On Light and the Hexaemeron developed a metaphysics of light in which the spread of luminous form is the principle of all bodily existence, anticipating both medieval optics and themes of modern natural philosophy. As bishop, he was a fearless reformer who refused royal and papal demands he considered unjust.