Robert de Beaufeu

Robert de Beaufeu
Nationality probably English
Occupation secular canon
Known for poet

Robert de Beaufeu (died in or before 1219) (Latinised to de Bello Fago or de Bello Foco, meaning "from a beautiful fireplace") was a secular canon of Salisbury and a minor poet.[lower-alpha 1][2]

Life

Educated at the University of Oxford, he gained, at an early age, a reputation for learning, and became the friend of Gerald of Wales, Walter Map, and other scholars.[3] He was granted the prebend of Horton, near Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, where he built a hall house, part of which survives in the structure of the present 16th century Horton Court.

Works

He is said have written a work entitled Encomium Topographiæ, after hearing the Topographia Hiberniæ (c.1188) of Gerald of Wales read by the author at a festival at Oxford.[3][lower-alpha 2]

A poem in praise of ale, Versus de commendatione Cervisiæ, in a manuscript in the Cambridge University Library, bears his name,[4] and has been argued as suggesting ("according to stereotypes established by Alcuin, Reginald of Canterbury, and Henry of Avranches") that he was an Englishman.[1]

Notes

  1. ↑ Also Robert de Bello Foco [1]
  2. ↑ His authorship of this piece depends on Gerald of Wales's self-serving story reporting the praise that Robert gave to Gerald's Topographia Hiberniae.[1]
  1. 1 2 3 Rigg 2004.
  2. ↑ Cassells Latin Dictionary: Focus -i (m), fireplace, hearth, fire of funeral pile
  3. 1 2 Thompson 1885, p. 36.
  4. ↑ Thompson 1885, p. 36 cite: Gg. vi. 42

References

  • Rigg, A. G. (2004). "Beaufeu, Robert de (d. in or before 1219)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/1850. (subscription required)
Attribution
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Thompson, Edward Maunde (1885). "Beaufeu, Robert de". In Stephen, Leslie. Dictionary of National Biography. 04. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 36. Endnotes:
    • John Bale, iii. 36
    • Works of Giraldus Cambr. (Rolls Series), volume i. 1861, page 72, volume iii. 1863, page 92
    • Wright's Biography. British Lit. Anglo-Norman Period, 1846. page 469.

Further reading

  • Wright, Thomas (1846). Biographia Britannica literaria; or, Biography of literary characters of Great Britain and Ireland, arranged in chronological order: Anglo Norman period. London: John W. Parker. p. 469.

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