On the Six Days of Creation: A Translation of the Hexaemeron

Grosseteste is a crucially important figure in the history of English learning, representing the last flowering of a fully native tradition of scholarship. His Hexaemeron is rare among works of this period in giving such a wide and deep insight into the medieval world view. A work of Grosseteste’s early maturity (probably completed around 1235) it is a commentary on the early chapters of Genesis, on the six days of creation, and gives him a context for expounding his attitude to theology, to the world, and to the place of human beings in that world. It is a masterly compilation and reconciliation of conflicting Greek and Latin authorities, handled with great confidence, which gives a supremely rich account of the unity of medieval learning, where the study of God includes the study of the whole world.