Oresme, Nicolas
ORESME, NICOLAS (c. 1320-1382), French bishop, celebrated for his numerous works in both French and Latin on scholastic, scientific and political questions, was born in Normandy at the opening of the 14th century. In 1348 he was a student in the college of Navarre at Paris, of which he became head in 1356. In 1361 he was named dean of the cathedral of Rouen. Charles V. had him appointed bishop of Lisieux on the 16th of November 1377. He died in that city on the nth of July 13S2. One of his works, of great importance for the history of economic conceptions in the middle ages, was the De origine, nalura, jure et mutalionibus monelarum, of which there is also a French edition. Oresme was the author of several works on astrology, in which he showed its falseness as a science and denounced its practice. At the request of Charles V. he translated the Ethics, Politics and Economics of Aristotle. In December 1363 he preached before Urban V. a sermon on reform in the church, so severe in its arraignment that it was often brought forward in the 16th century by Protestant polemists.
See Francis Meunier, Essai siir la vie et les ouvrages de Nicole Oresme (Paris, 1857) ; Feret, La Faculte_ de theologie de I' Universite de Paris (Paris, 1896, t. iii. p. 290 sqq.); Emile Bridrey, Nicole Oresme. Etude des doctrines et des faits cconomiques (Paris, 1906).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
