Editing Thomas Bradwardine (section)

==Life==
Sources vary about Bradwardine's early life before receiving his degree in 1321. His exact date of birth is unknown but sources point to a date between 1290 and 1300.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bradwardine |first=Thomas |title=De Causa Dei |year=1344}}</ref> His place of birth is also unknown but some sources point to it being near [[Chichester]], Sussex, or [[Harfield]]. The first concrete sources of his do not appear until he received his degree in 1321 from [[Balliol College, Oxford]]. Thomas Bradwardine became a [[Fellow]] of [[Merton College, Oxford|Merton College]] in Oxford, and was awarded his B.A. in August 1321. Bradwardine stayed at Merton College until 1333, when he was appointed [[Canon regular|Canon]] of Lincoln, and in 1337 he was appointed the chaplain of [[St Paul's Cathedral]]. His involvement with the ecclesiastical began in September 1333, when he was made the Canon of Lincoln. It is less corroborated by sources but it is stated that Bradwardine may have been the Bishop of Durham between 1335 and 1337. It is rumoured that this move to Durham helped put him into contact with [[Edward III of England|King Edward III]], which would lead to his eventual appointment of Chaplain of [[Old St Paul's Cathedral]] in London.<ref name=":08">{{Cite book |last=Murdoch |first=John |title=Dictionary of Scientific biography |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |year=1970 |isbn=9780684101149 |pages=390–397}}</ref>

He acquired several degrees from Oxford, it is presumed he acquired them on these dates: B.A. by August 1321, an M.A. by 1323, a B.Th. by 1330, and a D.Th. by 1348.<ref name=":08" />

Bradwardine was a precocious student, educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a fellow by 1321; he took the degree of doctor of divinity, and acquired the reputation of a profound scholar, a skilful [[mathematician]] and an able [[theology|theologian]]. He was also a gifted [[logician]] with theories on the ''[[insolubilia|insolubles]]'' and in particular the [[liar paradox]].

Bradwardine subsequently moved to [[Merton College, Oxford]] on a fellowship. He was afterwards raised to the high offices of chancellor of the university and professor of divinity. Bradwardine (like his contemporary [[William of Ockham]]) was a culminating figure of the great intellectual movement at Oxford that had begun in the 1240s. 

Bradwardine was an ordinary secular cleric, which gave him intellectual freedom but deprived him of the security and wherewithal that the Preaching Orders would have afforded; instead he turned to royal patronage. From being chancellor of the [[diocese of London]] as [[Dean of St Paul's]], he became chaplain and confessor to [[Edward III of England|Edward III]], whom he attended during his wars in France at the [[Battle of Crécy]], where he preached at the victory Mass, and at the subsequent [[Siege of Calais (1346)|siege of Calais]]. Edward repeatedly entrusted him with diplomatic missions. On his return to England, he was successively appointed [[prebendary]] of Lincoln and [[Dean of Lincoln|dean]] (1348). In 1349 the canons of the chapter at Canterbury elected him Archbishop following the death of Archbishop John Stratford, but [[Edward III of England|Edward III]] withheld his consent, preferring his chancellor [[John de Ufford]], perhaps loth to lose his trusted confessor. After Ufford died of the [[Black Death]], 2 May, Bradwardine went to receive confirmation from Pope [[Pope Clement VI|Clement VI]] at Avignon, but on his return he died of the plague at [[Rochester, Kent|Rochester]]<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Qaojnr_ii-0C&dq=bradwardine+-wikipedia+rochester&pg=PA107 Norman F. Cantor, ''In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made'']</ref> on 26 August 1349,<ref name=Handbook233>Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 233</ref> forty days after his consecration. He was buried at Canterbury.

[[Chaucer]] in [[The Nun's Priest's Tale]] (line 476) ranks Bradwardine with [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]] and [[Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius|Boethius]]. His great theological work, to modern eyes, is a treatise against the [[Pelagians]], entitled ''De causa Dei contra Pelagium et de virtute causarum''. Bradwardine's major treatise argued that space was an infinite void in which God could have created other worlds, which he would rule as he ruled this one. The "causes of virtue" include the [[astrology|influences of the planets]], not as predestining a human career, but influencing a subject's essential nature. This astrophysical treatise was not published until it was edited by [[Sir Henry Savile]] and printed in London, 1618; its circulation in manuscript was very limited. The implications of the infinite void were revolutionary; to have pursued them would have threatened the singular relationship of man and this natural world to God (Cantor 2001); in it he treated theology mathematically. He wrote also ''De Geometria speculativa'' (printed at Paris, 1530); ''De Arithmetica practica'' (printed at Paris, 1502); ''De proportionibus velocitatum in motibus (1328)'' (printed at Paris, 1495; Venice, 1505); ''De Quadratura Circuli'' (Paris, 1495); and an ''Ars Memorative'', Sloane manuscripts. No. 3974 in the [[British Museum]] – earning from the Pope the title of the ‘Profound Doctor’. Another text, ''De Continuo'' is more tenuously credited to him and thought to be written sometime between 1328 and 1325.