Vincent of Beauvais

French scholar and historian

• Born: c. 1190
• Birthplace: Beauvais, Oise, France
• Died: 1264
• Place of death: Beauvais, Oise, France

Vincent compiled the most comprehensive encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, encompassing natural science, history, theology, philosophy, and the liberal and mechanical arts.

Early Life

Very little is known about Vincent of Beauvais (boh-vay), except for his association with the court of the French king Louis IX and inferences that can be drawn from his writings. He never refers to his birthplace, but he often shows a familiarity with people and events in Beauvais. No record of his birth exists, and the approximate dates commonly given for it (usually between 1190 and 1200) stem partly from the assumption that he must have been a fairly young man when he became a member of the newly formed Order of Preachers, the Dominicans, in about 1220.

According to some sources, Vincent was based at the Dominican House on rue St. Jacques in Paris and studied at the University of Paris in the 1220’. He probably participated in the founding of the Dominican House in Beauvais in 1228-1229, perhaps in keeping with the Dominican custom of sending members of the order back to their hometowns to establish convents. It was during this period of his life in Beauvais that he came to the attention of Louis IX because of his early work on the compendium of knowledge that finally became the Speculum majus (1244, revised 1256-1259).

Life’s Work

Although Vincent did not receive an official appointment from Louis IX until about 1246, when he was made lector of the royally founded Cistercian abbey at Royaumont (not far from Beauvais), he was probably in correspondence with the king in the early 1240’s concerning his compendium, and he received royal encouragement and financial support for some of the copying and research on that immense project. The first version of the Speculum majus seems to have been finished and ready for the king by 1244. From the time of his appointment at Royaumont, however, Vincent was intimately involved with the royal family, which was often in residence there. He became a kind of educational director for the king’s children (although he did not tutor them himself), and in 1260, he wrote, at the commission of the queen, a work on the education of princes, De eruditione filiorum nobilium (on the instruction of nobly born children). When one of the royal children, the dauphin Louis, died in 1260, Vincent wrote Epistola consolatoria super morte filii (letter of consolation on the death of his son), a personal consolation to the king. In the preface to this letter, Vincent mentions that he has preached before the king, a comment that offers further evidence of the respect he was shown by the royal family.

Vincent of Beauvais is chiefly remembered, however, for his tremendous three-volume encyclopedia, the Speculum majus. This work was begun probably in the 1230’s and went through several stages before the revised version (covering material up to 1250) was made available sometime between 1256 and 1259. The Dominican emphasis on intellectual endeavors no doubt nurtured Vincent’s desire to provide an all-inclusive reference book for the learned, but he devised the specific rationale and organization for the work, even though he presented himself as no more than an extractor of the wisdom of others. He saw the work as an aid to memory amid the bewildering abundance of materials one would have to consult to answer questions of theology, natural science, or history. He was a selector and arranger of knowledge, not an original thinker.

Nevertheless, what he produced was a monumental and influential treatise in three parts: the Naturale, the Historiale, and the Doctrinale (dealing, respectively, with the elements of nature, human acts, and the arts and sciences). The common purpose of these three parts (later editions added a spurious fourth book, the Morale) was to enable the readers more easily to observe, admire, and imitate the best in human wisdom up to that time; in other words, Vincent wanted to provide materials not only for intellectual instruction but also for moral improvement. The Naturale uses the six days of creation in Genesis as the basis of its organization, dealing with all aspects of the relationships among God, humans, and nature. This line of thought leads into the next book, the Historiale, which through the account of fallen humans’ experiences shows the need for redemption through Jesus Christ. This redemption can be applied to humans, however, by the process of education, and thus the arts and sciences discussed in the Doctrinale (doctrina means “instruction”) serve to pull humans out of the error imposed by sin and into the natural, uncorrupted knowledge of God’s world.

With this emphasis on the value of human wisdom, the Speculum majus is one of the marvels of thirteenth century Scholasticism, ranking in its own way with the clearly more profound work of Saint Thomas Aquinas in his Summa theologiae (c. 1265-1273; Summa Theologica, 1911-1921). Although Vincent did not share Thomas’s exalted view of Aristotle, he did, like Thomas, show the usefulness of non-Christian sources of knowledge and affirmed the power of intellect to participate in the process of salvation.

Vincent’s comments in the prologue to the Speculum majus indicate that he was a humble, unpretentious man, not bred to expectations of greatness. He wanted only to present the best of what others had said in the most usable form. When he wrote his smaller books of instruction, they were all commissioned, not volunteered. His last known work was De morali principis institutione (1263; of the order of moral principles for rulers), which he was entreated to write by Louis IX. An active and honored old man, Vincent died the next year after completing this book, his work assured of distribution through the patronage of his king, whom he had served as instructor, preacher, and friend.

Significance

Vincent was the most comprehensive of the medieval encyclopedists, going beyond the efforts of such others as Saint Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636), Lambert of St. Omer (Liber floridus, c. 1120), and Bartholomeus Anglicus (De proprietatibus rerum, c. 1230-1240; English translation, c. 1495). Vincent’s authority was recognized well into the Renaissance. His treatment of the legends of Alexander the Great was the most extensive in the Middle Ages, and his lives of the saints and his other moral stories were drawn on or recommended by such well-known writers as Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung in their Le Roman de la rose (c. 1230; The Romance of the Rose, 1914-1924), Jacob of Voragine (Golden Legend, late thirteenth century), Geoffrey Chaucer (“The Monk’s Tale,” late fourteenth century), and Christine de Pizan (various texts, early fifteenth century); even Sir Walter Ralegh, in The History of the World (1614), mentions Vincent as a source. The Speculum majus fell into disrepute as an emerging scientific age began to require more critical methods for ascertaining and presenting what purported to be facts, but Vincent’s work remains an astounding intellectual feat and a monumental record of what medieval Europeans of the mid-thirteenth century regarded as their basic body of knowledge.

Bibliography

Aerts, W. J., E. R. Smits, and J. B. Voorbij, eds. Vincent of Beauvais and Alexander the Great: Studies on the “Speculum Maius” and Its Translations into Medieval Vernaculars. Gröningen, The Netherlands: Egbert Forsten, 1986. A collection of essays, mostly on translations of Vincent’s version of the Alexander story. The first two essays offer views of the Cistercian roots of the form, purpose, and function of the Speculum majus and of the probable chronology of the development of its parts.

Dominguez, Cesar. “Vincent of Beauvais and Alfonso the Learned.” Notes and Queries 45, no. 2 (June, 1998): 172-173. A brief note discussing the arrival of Vincent’s encyclopedia in Spain.

Gabriel, Astrik L. The Educational Ideas of Vincent of Beauvais. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1962. An excellent survey of Vincent’s work, with special emphasis on his ideas on education. Thorough footnotes. Contains outlines of major works and a generous number of translated quotations.

Taylor, Henry Osborn. The Mediaeval Mind: A History of the Development of Thought and Emotion in the Middle Ages. 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966. Volume 2 discusses the relationship between Vincent’s Historiale and the statuary at Chartres Cathedral and outlines and comments on the whole Speculum majus.

Tobin, Rosemary Barton. Vincent of Beauvais’ “De eruditione filiorum nobilium”: The Education of Women. New York: P. Lang, 1984. A look at Vincent’s De eruditione as it relates to girls’ and women’s education. Includes a bibliography and an index.

Tobin, Rosemary Barton. “Vincent of Beauvais’ Double Standard in the Education of Girls.” History of Education 7 (1978): 1-5. An exposition of the distinction made in Vincent’s De eruditione filiorum nobilium between programs of education for boys and those for girls. Shows that girls’ education is primarily moral, with the emphasis on preservation of chastity, whereas boys’ education stresses intellectual development.

Tobin, Rosemary Barton. “Vincent of Beauvais on the Education of Women.” Journal of the History of Ideas 35 (July, 1974): 485-489. Disputes the claim that Vincent’s comments on women’s education are more liberal than others of his time, concluding that Vincent’s ideas on the education of women are quite consonant with other opinions in the thirteenth century.

Ullman, Berthold Louis. “A Project for a New Edition of Vincent of Beauvais.” Speculum 8 (July, 1933): 312-326. In the context of demonstrating the need for a new edition of the Speculum majus, the author surveys what is known about Vincent and his work. Enumerates major figures influenced by the encyclopedia.