The appellation "Merton Calculators" is a completely artificial one, referring principally to four individuals who were students or masters at Merton College, Oxford, in the fourteenth century. They are linked by their common interest in developing techniques for solving a variety of logical dilemmas and mathematical problems applicable to natural philosophy and theology. "Calculator" was the name given apparently by fifteenth-century Italian Schoolmen to the chronologically last of these authors, Richard Swineshead; it has been applied retrospectively to Thomas Bradwardine, William Heytesbury, and John of Dumbleton.

Confused by even near contemporaries with at least two other Swinesheads of the fourteenth century, Richard Swineshead is recorded as a Merton fellow in 1344 and again in 1355. Other records indicate that he came from Lincoln diocese, and he is mentioned as one of the supporters of John Wylyot in his election as chancellor of the university in 1349. His major work, Liber Calculationum...