THOMAS CANTIMPRÉ (Van Bellinghen, Brabantino). - Dominican scholar, hagiographer and naturalist, b. in 1201 at Sint Pieters-Leeuw near Brussels, d. ca. 1270-72 at Louvain.

In 1217 he entered the Canons Regular of Cantimpré near Cambrai, whence his obituary surname. In 1230 he became a Dominican, studied (1233-37) at Cologne under St. Albert the Great and then (1237-40) at Paris; he was subprior at Louvain in 1246. In his scholarship T. represents the forking of a naturalist, who then closes himself off from the Albertine-Thomistic movement expressed in the Dominican ratio studiorum of 1259 and remains spiritualistic.

He also devoted himself to the direction of souls. In hagiography he is credulous, since he aims only at edification. He wrote the lives of the blessed Christina "mirabilis" and of Belgium (d. in 1224) of Saint-Trond (ed. Acta SS. Iulii, V, Paris 1868, pp. 650-60), of St. Lutgardis of Aywières (Aywières) O. Cist. (1246), to whom he served as director (ibid., Iun., V, there 1867, pp. 189-210), of Abbot John of Cantimpré, of the blessed Margaret of Ypres (d. in 1237), Dominican tertiary (ed. in H. Choquet, Sancti belgi O. P., Douai 1618, pp. 144-200, ed. G. Meerssmann, in Arch. Fratr. Praedic., 18 (1948), pp. 106-30) and the supplement to the life of the blessed Mary of Oignies (d. in 1213) (ed. Acta SS. Iunii, V, Paris 1867, pp. 573-81). The famous Bonum universale de opibus (Liber de opibus), finished in 1263, a work of edification that under the image of the bees outlines the exemplary Christian and regular life, contains much information of contemporary history, for example, on the origin of the Beguines, on St. Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, always however to be checked; it was printed at Strasbourg in 1472, in an excellent edition at Douai in 1597, the last time at The Hague in 1902. The De rerum naturis or Liber de natura rerum, an encyclopedia of natural sciences, preserved in numerous manuscripts, often attributed to St. Albert the Great, was a source of material for Vincent of Beauvais, St. Albert the Great (De mineralibus, De animalibus), Bartholomew the Englishman, Conrad of Megenberg and others; it had in Jacob Van Maerlant (Der Naturen bloeme) a versifier.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: Quétif-Echard, I, Paris 1719, p. 251; L. Thomdike, A History of magic and experimental science during the first thirteen centuries of our era, II, New York 1923, pp. 372-98; G. Meersseman, Introd. in opera omnia b. Alberti M., Bruges [1931], p. 144; G. Sarton, Introd. to the history of science, II, Baltimore 1931, pp. 592-94; St. Axters, Bildragen tot een bibliogr. van de nederl. dominikaansche vroomheid, s. n. 1, pp. 13-22; id., Geschiedenis van de vroomheid in de Nederlanden, Antwerp 1950, pp. 333-335, 450-52.

Angelo Walz

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Thomas Cantimpré (Van Bellinghen, Brabantino)

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