Athelard
, or Adelard, was a learned monk of Bath in England, who flourished about 1150, as appears by some manuscripts of his in the libraries of Corpus Christi and Trinity colleges, Oxford. Vossius says, he was universally learned in all the sciences of his time, and that, to increase his knowledge, he travelled into France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Egypt, and Arabia. He wrote many books himself, and translated others from different languages among the latter, he translated from Arabic into Latin, Euclid’s Elements, at a time before any Greek copies had been discovered, and “Erichiafarim” upon the seven planets. He wrote a treatise on the several liberal arts, another on the astrolobe, another on the causes of natural compositions, besides several on physics and on medicine. Some manuscripts of his referred to by Vossius remain in the colleges in Oxford as in Oriel, “De decisionibus naturalibns,” and “De philosophia Danielis,” in Corpus Christi,
De causis naturalium Compositionum," and in Trinity college, his translation of Euclid, besides several in the Bodleian but others appear to have been taken away. 2