ABSTRACT
In order to appreciate the revolutionary developments in education in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in which Robert Grosseteste lived, wrote and preached, it is important to be aware of what went before. Grosseteste’s fallen human might be afflicted but the disease is far from incurable: ‘But in any operation in which error and imperfection take hold, guidance and help are needed, by which error may be purged and defect may be corrected’. Grosseteste was also, paradoxically, a radical interpreter of the new learning that was arriving in Western Europe in the form of Aristotle’s natural philosophy and the Arab sciences. As the Latin West was being faced with new challenges in learning in the thirteenth century, it was also experiencing the emergence of a new form of educational setting that was mushrooming into existence in towns and cities such as Paris, Bologna, Oxford and Cambridge in the form of universities.
