Vincentius Bellovacensis

Frater Vincent of Beauvais

Vincent of Beauvais was a brilliant student with an incredible memory. He studied in Paris during the later stages of Philippe-August's reign and later became a friend of saint Louis. After he joined the Dominican order and the convent of Saint-Jacques de Paris, he coordinated many works of collection of knowledge and discoveries, though some say behind his back that he is not open enough to modern science and Aristotlic writings.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Vincent was born in Beauvais, and he was soon spending the vast majority of his time in the local urban school, learning with avidity. His teachers wondered who his parents may be who sent him there without so much as a snack, but the child was brilliant and they fed him, considering him as a future clergyman. They sent him to Paris University when we was of age, where his cursus was almost a deception compared to his previous precocity. He managed to pass as dull, boring, excellent student but not brilliant. In his first years in the Art faculty, he joined the newly-founded dominical convent of Saint-Jacques de Paris and thus completed his theology with less worries concerning his subsistence.
Ten years later in 1228, Vincent had started writing and was recommanded to Louis IX for his favourite monastary, Royaumont, to serve as a lector, even though it was a Cistercian monastery and Vincent was still (and stayed) Dominican. Vincent and Louis soon became friends and the king enjoyed practicing his own weirding habits while profiting from the teachings of a man who would stay unphased no matter what his pupils where doing : seating on the ground, doing push-ups, sprawling, writing on the ground rather than on paper, drawing instead of writing, and so on. Yes, Louis concentrated better multitasking or taking notes in ways that would shock most other teachers, but Vincent never seemed to notice.
Vincent wrote many books after that, many of whom were financed and reviewed by his royal student and his relatives. He died of old age in 1264, when he was around 75. He was missed, for he had taught to most of Louis's children at some point or another and people had grown to love his apathetic, lethargic placidity, his quiet, and his thoughness in everything he did.

Accomplishments & Achievements

Speculum Majus

J'ai eu l'idée de réunir en un seul volume, condensé et ordonné, selon un agencement de mon invention, des extraits choisis parmi tout ce que j'ai pu lire. Je traite selon l'ordre de la saint Écriture en premier lieu du Créateur, puis des créatures, de la chute et de la restauration de l'homme, ensuite des faits et des gestes historiques selon la chronologie.

With a small team of scribes, Vincent worked at this opus major starting 1230, but he had been planning it long before. The last century had been full of innovations and discoveries, and he was afraid that, if these new knowledges and thoughts were not ordered and classified, they would soon be forgotten as once again students thrived to explore new fields. Because of this, he was accused of neglecting the newest discoveries.
This monumental encyclopaedia is comprised of three parts : the first, Mirror of Nature describes the natural world, the second, Mirror of Doctrine, summed up the basics of the religious dogma and speculations, and the third, Mirror of History, focused on human kind and its feats throughout times. The complete work was sometime called "mirror of the world".

De eruditione filiorum nobilium

Composed in 1247-1250, this work is addressed to queen Marguerite, for the education of her son Philippe. In truth it covers young girls education as well, and it shows how dedicated to education Vincent was, making him one of the very first authors to write serious treaties of pedagogy. Despite that modern trend, he is sometimes pretty conservative, and recommands particularly that girl education be entirely focused on their wedding (be it with a man or with god), considering they are just as much as men tempted by sin.

As-tu des filles, veille sur leur corps et montre-leur un visage sévère.

Others

Vincent wrote more, more and more until he no longer could. He wrote religious treatises such as the Liber de sancta trinitate and the Liber de gratia, built to be read together, in the last half of the 1240s. He wrote a treatise of political science, the De morali principis institutione, for Louis IX and his son-in-law Thibaud de Champagne, king of Navarre, after 1260. He wrote the Liber consolatorius pro morte amici when prince Louis, first-born son of Louis IX, died, to help his friend overcome his sorrow. He wrote more treateses, the Liber laudum virginis gloriosae, the Liber de sancto Johanne evangelista, the Expositio orationis dominicae, the Expositio salutationis beatae Mariae, the Liber de penitentia... His predilection for religious works that weren't asked of him and for which he didn't get paid shows more than anything else in his behaviour how much his scolastic and clerical life, although it might be the result of poverty or abandonment from his parents, he trully believed was where lied his salvation and ideal place, despite lacking a calling as strong as mystics or less educated friars.

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Lector of Royaumont

Currently Held Titles

• Magister

Life

1190 AD 1264 AD

Circumstances of Birth

Not talked about, ever. Case of child abandonment. No need to ask him about it : it is not talked about.

Circumstances of Death

Old age.

Birthplace

Beauvais

Current Residence

Constantly switching between Royaumont and Paris after 1228.

Gender

male

Aligned Organization

Ordo Predicatorum

Other Affiliations

• Monastère de Royaumont
• Sancti Jacobi domus Parisius