VINCENT OF BEAUVAIS. — Dominican theologian and philosopher, born ca. 1190, died at Beauvais in 1264. He was probably a religious in Paris (ca. 1220) and later resided in the convent of Beauvais, from which he took his name (Bellovacensis). He was on friendly terms (a contemporary calls him familiaris) with St. Louis, King of France, and taught in the Cistercian abbey of Royaumont, founded by the same king.
His principal work is the Speculum maius (Strasbourg 1473-76; the best edition is that of the Benedictines of Douai [4 vols., 1624] with an analytical index): a vast encyclopedia of all contemporary knowledge, citing ca. 2000 works by 450 authors; divided into three parts: Speculum naturale (in 32 books), dealing with God and His attributes, the Trinity and creation, angels, the material world, living beings, with special regard to man; Speculum doctrinale (in 17 books), covering all scholastic science: philosophy, the liberal arts, secular sciences; Speculum historiale (in 31 books), recounting the history of the world from creation to 1254, with an “excursus” on the end of the world in 2376, on the reign of the Antichrist, and on the Last Judgment. A fourth part, the Speculum morale, was added later, by an anonymous compiler, after 1310.
V. collected much material with a view to an Opus universalis of political science for the King of France. But Queen Margaret asked him to suspend that work and prepare a manual for the education of princes; V. complied and wrote (between 1248 and 1250) the De eruditione filiorum regalium (Basel 1481, ed. by A. Steiner, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1938). At the request of the King of France and that of Navarre, he then published (1260-1263) the De morali principis institutione, a work originally intended to be part of the great political encyclopedia. He is also credited (after it was edited among the works of St. Thomas) with a De eruditione principum, which is actually the work of William Peyraut. The method of his pedagogical works is similar to that of the Speculum: a collection of maxims and counsels drawn from Holy Scripture and from Christian and pagan authors. Other works by V. are: Liber Gratiae (a treatise on the Incarnation and Redemption); Liber laudum Virginis gloriosae: de vita scilicet et gestis B. Virginis; Liber de s. Johanne Evangelista (a continuation of the preceding); Consolatio super morte amici, dedicated to St. Louis on the occasion of the death of his firstborn son Louis (all four edited together at Basel in 1481); De poenitentia