Bishop of Lincoln, one of the greatest scholars and most energetic prelates of his age, was born probably about 1175. He studied with great distinction at the universities of Oxford and Paris, and became a teacher at the former. He obtained the patronage of Hugh de Wells, bishop of Lincoln, and after holding several subordinate church appointments, he became bishop of that diocese in 1235. During his episcopate he displayed great earnestness, decision, and courage in the discharge of his ecclesiastical and political duties, maintaining his authority and the liberties of the church alike against Pope and King.

  The mere list of his own writings occupies three and twenty closely printed quarto pages.

  Thus, therefore, departed from the exile of this world, which he had never liked, the holy Robert, the second, bishop of Lincoln, who died at his manor of Buckdon, in the night of St. Denis’s day. During his life, he had openly rebuked the pope and the king; had corrected the prelates, and reformed the monks; in him the priests lost a director—clerks an instructor—scholars a supporter—and the people a preacher; he had shown himself a persecutor of the incontinent, a careful examiner of the different scriptures, and a bruiser and despiser of the Romans. He was hospitable and profuse; civil, cheerful, and affable at the table for partaking of bodily nourishment; and at the spiritual table, devout, mournful, and contrite. In the discharge of his pontificial duties, he was attentive, indefatigable, and worthy of veneration.

  Jehosophat, seeing four hundred Prophets of Baal together, and suspecting they were too many to be good, cast in that shrewd question; “Is there not here a Prophet of the Lord besides?” and thereupon Micaiah was mentioned unto him. Possibly the Reader, seeing such swarms of Popish Saints in England, will demand, “Is there not yet a Saint of the Lord besides?” And I conceive myself concerned to return a true answer, that there is Robert Grosseteste by name.

  Were I to speak of such works of this prelate as I have seen, I should say that, though they, certainly, announce talents and reading, they are destitute of elegance, and evince no acquaintance with classical authorities. But still, when compared with those of Friar Bacon, who seems to have utterly disregarded all embellishments of style, they may be deemed entitled to some encomium in point of scholarship.

  He was a Churchman of the highest hierarchical notions. Becket himself did not assert the immunities and privileges of the Church with greater intrepidity: rebellion against the clergy was as the sin of witchcraft; but those immunities, those privileges, implied heavier responsibility; that authority, belonged justly only to a holy, exemplary, unworldly clergy. Everywhere he was encountered with sullen, stubborn, or open resistance. He was condemned as restless, harsh, passionate: he was the Ishmael of the hierarchy, with his hand against every man, every man’s hand against him.

  Probably no one has had greater influence upon English thought and English literature for the two centuries which followed his age.

  In his episcopal office, Grossetête displayed an indefatigable activity, with an earnest and somewhat intolerant zeal for the reformation of his own flock and of the church at large. In him the new orders found a hearty patron; he employed them in his vast diocese, as instruments for reaching those classes which were neglected by the secular clergy; and in the university of Oxford, of which he was chancellor, his favour encouraged them as teachers. Yet the especial principle of these orders was not unreservedly approved by him; for we are told that, after having cried up mendicancy as the highest step of the ladder which leads to heaven, he added privately that there is one step yet higher—namely, to live by the labour of one’s own hands. And it is said that in his last days he strongly reprobated the change by which the friars, instead of being censors of the great, had become their flatterers.

  There were few souls high enough fully to appreciate and love him; he was looked upon as an Ishmael, whose hand was against every man, and every man’s hand was against him. Still, the beautiful legends told of what happened at his death, and the miracles said to have been performed at his shrine, show that the classes in which his friends the friars had most influence revered him as a saint.

  As Protestants, we have both a right and a duty to hold in honour the memory of a man like Grossetête. His creed, indeed, was not the pure confession of the Evangelical Churches; but his fear of God was so earnest and upright; his zeal for the glory of God was so glowing; his care for the salvation of his own soul and of the souls committed to him by virtue of his office was so conscientious; his faithfulness so approved; his will so energetic; his mind so free from man-fearing and man-pleasing; his bearing so inflexible and beyond the power of corruption,—that his whole character constrains as to the sincerest and deepest veneration.

  We must remember that Grossetête held the highest hierarchical notions. Sacerdotalism was the very life of his soul. The clergy were with him God’s vicegerents upon earth, invested with the tremendous prerogatives claimed by the Church of Rome for those who minister at her altars in every age. He was not a reformer in the sense of Luther or Cranmer, or Knox, or even as Reuchlin, Erasmus, or Colet. He adhered to the strictest orthodoxy of his time. His views of reformation embraced only the discipline and administration of the Church, and though he did not hesitate to speak of an individual Pope as Antichrist, he stoutly maintained that it was only through the Papacy all ecclesiastics could derive their commission and spiritual power.