Robert Grosseteste

Blessed Robert Grosseteste
Bishop of Lincoln
An early 14th-century portrait of Grosseteste
Installed	1235
Term ended	1253
Predecessor	Hugh of Wells
Successor	Henry of Lexington
Personal details
Born	c. 1175 Stow,Suffolk
Died	9 October 1253 (aged c. 78) Buckden, Huntingdonshire

Robert Grosseteste (/ˈɡroʊstɛst/ GROHS-test; Latin: Robertus Grosseteste; c. 1175 – 9 October 1253) was an English statesman, scholastic philosopher, theologian, scientist and Bishop of Lincoln. He was born of humble parents at Stradbroke in Suffolk. Upon his death, he was almost universally revered as a saint in England, but attempts to procure a formal canonization failed. A. C. Crombie calls him "the real founder of the tradition of scientific thought in medieval Oxford, and in some ways, of the modern English intellectual tradition".

There is very little direct evidence about Grosseteste's education. He may have received a liberal arts education at Hereford, in light of his connection with the Bishop of Hereford William de Vere in the 1190s and a recommendation from Gerald of Wales. It is fairly certain that Grosseteste was a master by 1192, but whether that indicated that he had completed a course of studies is unclear. Grosseteste acquired a position in the bishop's household, but at the death of this patron he disappears from the historical record for several years. He appears again in the early thirteenth century as a judge-delegate in Hereford, but there are no surviving details of where he resided or whether he had continued to study.