THOMAS

See also:

• THOMAS BRADWARDINE (c. 1290-1349)

BRADWARDINE (c. 1290-1349)  , English arch-bishop, called " the Profound Doctor," was born either at Hart-field in Sussex or at Chichester . He was educated at Merton College, Oxford, where he took the degree of doctor of divinity, and acquired the reputation of a profound scholar, a skilful mathematician and an able divine . He was afterwards raised to the high offices of chancellor of the university and professor of divinity . From being chancellor of the diocese of London, he became chap-lain and confessor to Edward III., whom he attended during his wars in France . On his return to England, be was successively appointed prebendary of Lincoln, archdeacon of Lincoln (1347), and in 1349 archbishop of Canterbury . He died of the plague at Lambeth on the 26th of August 1349, forty days after his consecration . Chaucer in his Nun's Priest's Tale ranks Bradwardine with St Augustine . His great work is a treatise against the Pelagians, entitled De causa Dei contra Pelagium et de virtute causarum, edited by Sir Henry Savile (London, 1618) . He wrote also De Geometria speculativa (Paris, 1530) ; De Arithmetica practica (Paris, 1502); De Proportionibus (Paris, 1495; Venice, 1505) ; De Quadratura Circuli (Paris, 1495) ; and an Ars Memorativa, Sloane MSS . No . 3974 in the British Museum . See Quetif-Echard, Script .

Praedic . (1719), i . 744; W . F .

Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. iv .