Alexander, Neckam
Alexander Neckam
Catholic geographer . Born Herfordshire, England, 8 September 1157; died Kempsey, Worcestershire, 1229. Augustinian abbot of Cirencester. Author of the “Liber de Natura Rerum,” which contains the first record of the use of the mariner’s compass in navigation, and a list of remarkable rivers and lakes.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Alexander, Neckam
an English abbot, was born at St. Alban’s, in Hertfordshire, and was educated in different universities. Returning to England, he took up his abode in the abbey of St. Alban’s, but shortly after removed to Exeter, where in 1215 he became abbot of the Regular Canons of St. Augustine in that church. He died at Worcester in 1227, leaving the following works: Comment. in IV Evangel. (MS. in Oxford): Expositio super Ecclesiasten (MS. in the Cotton Library): Expositio super Cantica (MS. in Oxford and Cambridge): Laudes Divini Sapientice (MS.): De Naturis Rerum (MS.): Elucidarium Bibliothecce (MS. at Caius College, Cambridge). See Cave, Hist. Lit. 2, 286.