Vincent de Beauvais

Vincent de Beauvais (1190-1264). Dominican frair and tutor to the sons of the king of France, he wrote the most famous of all medieval encyclopedias, the Speculum maius, divided into the Speculum naturale, on the world of nature, the Speculum doctrinale, on the arts, sciences, and theology, and the Speculum historicum, a chronicle of history from creation up to 1254. Vincent works mainly by compiling excerpts from authoritative sources, but he also shows the influence of his great Dominican contemporaries Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, and of Islamic writers such as Avicenna and Averroes.

[John Marenbon]