SOURCE: Stevenson, Francis Seymour. “Chapter X: 1239-1244.” In Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln: A Contribution to the Religious, Political, and Intellectual History of the Thirteenth Century, pp. 223-40. New York: Macmillan and Co. Limited, 1899.

In the following essay, Stevenson discusses Grosseteste's literary and academic activities between 1239 and 1244, including his efforts in promoting the revival of learning, his translations of The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and other writings.

It might have been thought that Grosseteste's time, during the period which elapsed between 1239 and 1244, would have been so fully occupied with the reorganisation of religious work within his diocese, with the numerous disputes in which he was engaged, and with the active part he took in public affairs, that he would have found no opportunity either for literary occupations or for sustained interest in the fortunes of the University with which his career had been so closely interwoven. Such...