Beleth, Giovanni - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. II, p. 678

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

BELETH, GIOVANNI. - Theologian, professor and rector of the University of Paris, perhaps of English origin, died in 1182.

Trithemius (c. 415) mentions his Sermones; Pithoeus, a Gemma animae; others praise his learning in Holy Scripture. His principal work is the Divinorum officiorum explicatio (between 1161 and 1165), also called Rationale div. off. (thus, for example: PL 202, 167), since it was often bound together with Durando’s Rationale div. off. (for example, in the Lyons edition of 1612): it is a substantial explanation of the liturgy of his time, with generally precise information concerning the divine office, Mass, the Church year, sacred places, and the minister of worship. The printed text differs greatly from that of the numerous manuscript codices found in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.

BIBL.: Ed. by C. Laurimann, Antwerp 1553, and often thereafter; P. C. Daunou, Hist. litt. France, XIV, Paris 1817, pp. 218-22; P. Féret, La faculté de théologie de Paris et ses docteurs les plus célèbres, I, ibid. 1894, p. 129, no. 4, with a list of unpublished writings; U. Chevalier, Répertoire des sources historiques, I, Paris 1903, p. 498 (bibl.); F. Cabrol, s. V. in DACL, II, cols. 649-50; J. de Ghellinck, L'heuer de la littérature latine au XIIe siècle, I, Brussels 1946, pp. 156-57. Filippo Oppenheim