Robert Grosseteste

Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175–1253) was the first Chancellor of Oxford University and Bishop of Lincoln. He is recognized as the pioneer of the scientific method in medieval Europe, emphasizing mathematics and controlled experimentation as the proper tools of natural philosophy.

Hermeticism and Natural Philosophy

Grosseteste cited De sex rerum principiis and drew on the Hermetic-Neoplatonic tradition of light metaphysics in his foundational treatise De Luce (On Light), arguing that light is the first corporeal form from which all material extension proceeds — a theory that maps directly onto the Hermetic doctrine of the divine light emanating through the spheres. His student Roger Bacon continued this Hermetic-mathematical synthesis, explicitly citing Hermes Trismegistus as an authority for his empirical program.