AN extraordinary link between medieval Malvern and the history of science and learning has been pointed out by Brian Stowe of Grange Road.

Walcher of Lorraine, the second prior of Great Malvern's monastery, is a significant figure, says Mr Stowe.

Unlike most Europeans of the 12th Century, he knew about the Islamic culture of the time.

In the Dark Ages, the Muslim world kept the flame of learning alive, with great libraries in Egypt, Baghdad and the Caliphate of Spain.

By contrast, says Mr Stowe, learning in Christian Britain of the time was lamentable; only the monasteries kept culture alive, surrounded by ignorance.

But Lorraine, where Walcher hailed from, had become a link between the Islamic and Christian worlds.

During the reigns of William the Conqueror and his son, religious leaders from Lorraine were appointed, including Walcher of Malvern.

"It was through religious houses like Malvern that the scientific and mathematical progress of the Islamic East penetrated this country," says Mr Stowe.

"Walcher of Malvern was possibly the greatest figure of the time to arrive in England from Lorraine, with his remarkable grasp of Arabic learning, his ability to translate it into Latin and also to sow the seed for replacing Roman mathematical calculations with Arabic equivalents.

"He is now considered the first English astronomer, and he had been observing eclipses of the moon, in Italy, with an astrolabe, in 1091/92, before travelling all the way to Great Malvern, where he would follow Aldwin as its prior from 1120 to 1135."

"William of Malmesbury, who met him, was struck by his piety. But he is far better known as a mathematician and astronomer, who translated into Latin an astronomical work of Peter Anfusi, which introduced into Britain Arabic mathematical figures and calculations, and the present use of degrees, minutes and seconds."

Walcher's coffin lid can be seen in the chantry of St Anne's Chapel in the Priory.

"Thus Great Malvern was intimately connected with the greatest mathematical revolution of the medieval world, the replacement of the unwieldy Roman numerals by Arabic, just as it now witnesses mathematical advances of the 21st Century at QinetiQ."