Article ID: CBB518904123

St. Albert the Great and Robert Grosseteste on the nature and causes of comets (2023)

unapi

Addressing a subject which has received very little attention, this article explores the interpretations of comets offered by St. Albert the Great (c. 1190–1280) and Robert Grosseteste (1168–1253). It shows how, despite prima facie convergences between the two 13th-century bishops concerning the nature and causation of comets, there are nonetheless several previously unobserved subtle differences between them. For Grosseteste the celestial bodies (i.e. the stars and the planets) are the primary, and indeed sole, efficient causes of cometary phenomena, serving to draw up rarefied matter to the upper atmosphere whereupon it is inflamed as it is assimilated to the celestial nature itself. For Albert, by contrast, while the celestial bodies may help to stir up combustible vapours within the atmosphere, and at times precipitate their ascension to the heavenly vault by means of their motion and conjunction, it is not always the case that a comet arises as a result of the direct efficient causality of the celestial bodies.

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Authors & Contributors
Hossfeld, Paul
Bonin, Therese M.
Di Martino, Carla
El-Bizri, Nader
Janssens, Jules L
Lawrence-Mathers, Anne E.
Journals
Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Angelicum: Pontificia Universitas a Sancto Thoma Romae
Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences
Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Journal of the History of Ideas
Publishers
Cambridge University Press
Hermann
Presses de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne
University of Notre Dame
University of Notre Dame Press
Concepts
Meteorology
Celestial mechanics
Causality
Aristotelianism
Optics
Astrology
People
Albertus Magnus
Grosseteste, Robert
Aristotle
Thomas Aquinas, Saint
Avicenna
Bacon, Roger
Time Periods
Medieval
17th century
Renaissance
Ancient
10th century
11th century
Places
Rome (Italy)
Europe
France
Greece
Italy
Netherlands
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