Book account

The Franciscans
appointed as the first _lector_ of their Oxford convent the famous
secular teacher Grosseteste, who ever after held the Minorites in the
closest estimation. Grosseteste was the greatest scholar of his day,
knowing Greek and Hebrew as well as the accustomed studies of the
period. A clear and independent thinker, he was not, like so many of
his contemporaries, overborne by the weight of authority, but appealed
to observation and experience in terms which make him the precursor of
Roger Bacon. Grosseteste's successor as _lector_ was himself a
Minorite, Adam Marsh, whose reputation was so great that Grosseteste
was afraid to leave him when sick in a French town, lest the Paris
masters should persuade him to teach in their schools. Adam's loyalty
to his native university withstood any such temptation, and from that
time Oxford began to hold up its head against Paris. Even before this,
Grosseteste persuaded John of St. Giles to transfer his teaching from
Paris to Oxford, where he remained for the rest of his life.


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