Note 461 — Chapter IV · THE SOURCES FOR THE PERIOD 1100–1250 A. D.

The monumental Speculum mundi of the Dominican, Vincent of Beauvais, which probably cannot have been written much before 1250, is divided into three parts: Speculum naturale, Speculum doctrinale, and Speculum historiale. There is no complete modern edition. Copies of incunabula and of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century editions are not 406rare. The work is a gigantic compilation drawn from a great multitude of sources, all of which were carefully indicated by the diligent compiler, together with additions by the compiler himself. Most novel from the geographical point of view are the data on Asia taken from Simon of St. Quentin and from John of Pian de Carpine, which are to be found in Speculum historiale (see above, pp. 269–270). Speculum naturale discusses the various features of the world in the order of their creation. It is in the nature of a vast commentary on the first chapter of Genesis. The following books are of especial geographical significance: II, consisting of metaphysical and theological material on the Creation; IV, dealing with the firmament, and the heavens; V, with meteorology; VI, with the waters; VII, with the lands; XXXIII, with regions habitable by man. The last is a typical cosmography, made up largely of fragments from Isidore, in which chapters are devoted to a discussion of the tripartite division of the earth, Asia and Paradise, India and its marvels, Asia Minor, Europe, Greece, other parts of Europe, Africa, the islands of the ocean which encircles the earth, the islands of the Mediterranean Sea, the Cyclades, etc.