The most eminent person next, after popes Silvester II and Gregory VII,
who labours under the imputation of magic, is Robert Grossetête, or
Robert of Lincoln, appointed bishop of that see in the year 1235. He
was, like those that have previously been mentioned, a man of the most
transcendant powers of mind, and extraordinary acquirements. His
parents are said to have been so poor, that he was compelled, when a
boy, to engage in the meanest offices for bread, and even to beg on
the highway. At length the mayor of Lincoln, struck with his
appearance, and the quickness of his answers to such questions as were
proposed to him, took him into his family, and put him to school. Here
his ardent love of learning, and admirable capacity for acquiring it,
soon procured him many patrons, by whose assistance he was enabled to
prosecute his studies, first at Cambridge, afterwards at Oxford, and
finally at Paris. He was master of the Greek and Hebrew languages,
then very rare accomplishments; and is pronounced by Roger Bacon, a
very competent judge, of whom we shall presently have occasion to
speak, to have spent much of his time, for nearly forty years, in the
study of geometry, astronomy, optics, and other branches of
mathematical learning, in all of which he much excelled. So that, as
we are informed from the same authority, this same Robert of Lincoln,
and his friend, Friar Adam de Marisco, were the two most learned men
in the world, and excelled the rest of mankind in both human and
divine knowledge.
This great man especially distinguished himself by his firm and
undaunted opposition to the corruptions of the court of Rome. Pope
Innocent IV, who filled the papal chair upwards of eleven years, from
1243 to 1254, appears to have exceeded all his predecessors in the
shamelessness of his abuses. We are told, that the hierarchy of the
church of England was overwhelmed like a flood with an inundation of
foreign dignitaries, of whom not a few were mere boys, for the most
part without learning, ignorant of the language of the island, and
incapable of benefiting the people nominally under their care, the
more especially as they continued to dwell in their own countries, and
scarcely once in their lives visited the sees to which they had been
appointed. [167] Grossetête lifted up his voice against these scandals.
He said that it was impossible the genuine apostolic see, which
received its authority from the Lord Jesus for edification, and not
for destruction, could be guilty of such a crime, for that would
forfeit all its glory, and plunge it into the pains of hell. He did
not scruple therefore among his most intimate friends to pronounce the
reigning pope to be the true Antichrist; and he addressed the pontiff
himself in scarcely more measured terms.
Among the other accomplishments of bishop Grossetête he is said to
have been profoundly skilled in the art of magic: and the old poet
Gower relates of him that he made a head of brass, expressly
constructed in such a manner as to be able to answer such questions as
were propounded to it, and to foretel future events.