BEATUS, of Liebana and Valcavado, Spanish
priest and monk, theologian and geographer, was born about 730, and died
in 798. About 776 he published his Commentaria im Apocalypse, containing
orle of the oldest Christian world-maps. He took a prominent part in the
Adoptionist controversy, and wrote against the views of Felix of Urgel,
especially as upheld by Elipandus of Toledo. As confessor to Queen Adosinda,
wife of King Silo of Oviedo (774-783), and as the master of Alcuin and
Etherius of Osma, Beatus exercised wide influence. His original map, which
was probably intended to illustrate, above all, the distribution of the
Apostolic missions throughout the world – depicting the head of Peter at
Rome, of Andrew in Achaia, of Thomas in India, of James in Spain, and so
forth – has survived in ten more or less modified copies. One only of these
– the “ Osma ” of 1203 – preserves the
Apostolic pictures; among the remaining examples, that of “ St Sever,”
now at Paris, and dating from about; 1030, is the most valuable; that of
“Valca-vado,” recently in the Ashburnham Library, executed in 970, is the
earliest; that of “Turin,” dating from about 1100, is perhaps the most
curious. Three others –“ Valladolid ” of about 1035, “Madrid” of 1047,
and “London” of 1109 – are derivatives of the “Valcavado-Ashburnham” of
970; the eighth, “Paris II,” is connected, though not very intimately,
with “ St Sever,” otherwise “Paris I ”; the ninth and tenth, “Gerona” and
“Paris III,” belong to the Turin group of Beatus maps. All these works
are emphatically of “ dark-age ” character; very seldom do they suggest
the true forms of countries, seas, rivers or mountains, but they embody
some useful information as to early medieval conditions and history. St
1sidore appears to be their principal authority; they also draw, directly
or indirectly, from Orosius, St Jerome, St Augustine, and probably from
a lost map of classical antiquity, represented in a measure by the Peutinger
Table of the 13th century.
The chief MSS. of the Commentaria
in Apocalypsin are Paris, National Library, Lat. 8878; Lat. nouv. acq.
1366 and 2290; (4) Ashburnham MSS. xv,; (5) London, B. Mus., Addit. MSS.
11695; (6) Turin, National Library
I, ii. (I); (7) Valladolid, University Library, 229; (8) the MS. in the
Episcopal Library at Osma, in Old Castile.
There is only one complete edition of the text, that
by Florez (Madrid, 1770). See also Konrad Miller, Die Weltkarte des
Beatus, Heft I. of Mappaemundi: die ältesten Weltkarten (Stuttgart,
1895); d’Avezac in Annales de... geographie (June 1870); Beazley,
Dawn of Modern Geography, i. 387-388 (1897); ii. 549-559; 591-
605 (1901).
(C. R. B.)
Charles R. Beazley
11th ed.