by Alejandra Pizarro (See Chinese translation)
Vincent de Beauvais (alternative names) was a friar attached to the Dominican houses in Paris, Beauvais, and Royaumont on the Oise. The exact dates of his birth and death are unknown, and we do not have much detail about his life.
Conjectures place him first in the house of the Dominicans at Paris between 1215 and 1220, and later at the Dominican monastery at Beauvais in Picardy. He was "reader" at the monastery of Royaumont on the Oise between 1228 and 1235. Around the late 1230s, Vincent had begun working on The Great Mirror (Speculum Maius) and in 1244 he had completed the first draft. The king read the volumes that Vincent compiled and funded a copy of them.
By the end of 1246 or early 1247, Vincent was at Royaumont where he worked as a lector in theology. At that time, Vincent wrote a political compendium (opus universale de statu principis) that was intended to consist of four parts. He completed the first and fourth parts some time after 1260.
During the years ca. 1247-ca. 1260, Vincent also assembled several theological works. From a letter written in January 1260, it is clear that he no longer lived at Royaumont, but it is unknown where he lived during the last years of his life. It is assumed that he died in 1264, but this has not been established with certainty.
The Speculum Maius is an encyclopaedia which was an effort to create a compendium of all the knowledge available at the time. The entire work contains 80 books, comprising 9,885 chapters. Vincent de Beauvais wrote the first three parts of the work; the fourth part was added by someone else at a later date. The first part is Speculum Naturale (The Mirror of Nature); the second is Speculum Doctrinale (The Mirror of Doctrine); the third is Speculum Historiale (The Mirror of History); and the fourth is Speculum Morale (The Mirror of Morals). Speculum Naturale is a compendium of scientific knowledge, and Speculum Doctrinale (The Mirror of Doctrine) is a practical manual of human affairs, including literature, art, mathematics, logic, rhetoric, law, and such sciences as astronomy and medicine. Speculum Morale contains writings by other authors, and was added in the 14th century.
Speculum Historiale (The Mirror of History) is a history of the world down to the 1240s written over the approximately 29 years between 1235 and 1264. It comprises 31 books and 3,793 chapters. It illustrates a trend towards the accumulation of material on every possible subject. This was achieved through copying out and aggregating material from other texts with little editorial intervention.
Speculum Historiale is supposedly based on an earlier chronicle compiled by Helinand of Froidmont (d. ca. 1229), though it differs from it because it does not use chronology as its primary system of organization. For his description of the Mongols, Vincent probably relied on information in the Ystoria Mongalorum by John of Plano Carpini and the Historia Tartarorum of Simon of Saint-Quentin.
In the first book he writes about the mysteries of God and the angels, the works of the six days and the creation of man. It treats the history of the world down to the sojourn in Egypt. The next eleven books detail events down to the triumph of Christianity under Constantine.
The next seven books relate the history of the rise of Muhammad and the reign of Charlemagne. Book XXV includes the First Crusade, and from then on, Vincent focuses on the history that was contemporary with him, culminating in Book XXXI, which treats the Crusade of St Louis in 1250.
