Simon Tunsted (c. 1310 – 1369) was an English Franciscan friar, theologian, philosopher and musician. The authorship of Quatuor Principalia Musicae, a treatise on music, is generally attributed to him.[1]
He originated from Norwich, though his year of birth is unknown. In Norwich, he joined a Greyfriars monastery and became a doctor of theology. He went on to become master of the Minorites at Oxford (in 1351). He died at Bruisyard, Suffolk. He was twenty-ninth provincial superior of the Minorites in England.[2]
Tunsted wrote a commentary on the Meteorologica of Aristotle and improved the calculating device described by Richard of Wallingford in Tractatus Albionis.[citation needed] He is also usually credited as the author of the Quatuor Principalia Musicae,[1] a mediaeval treatise on music which set out the musical principles on which the Ars nova movement was based.[citation needed]