The French Clergyman scientist, economist, and translator Nicholas of Oresme (ca. 1320-1382) is best known for his treatise on money, "De moneta," and for his services to King Charles V of France.

Nicholas of Oresme was born at Allemagne in Normandy. Little is known of his early years, except that he studied theology. He attended the College of Navarre of the University of Paris in 1348 and served as master of that college from 1356 to 1361. By 1370 he had become royal chaplain to King Charles V, and he had probably been Charles's tutor during the reign of Charles's father, King John II.

Nicholas wrote on a great variety of scientific subjects, but he is best known for his economic theory, his translations of the works of Aristotle, and his opposition to astrology. Charles V, a patron of the early Renaissance in France, collected a library of several thousand volumes. He...