ry thoroughly
the knowledge of his period. He had the true scientific spirit, and
constantly cites the authorities from whom his information was
derived. He cites hundreds of authors, and there is scarcely a subject
that he does not {337} touch on. One book of his work is concerned
with human anatomy, and the concluding portion of it is an
abbreviation of history carried down to the year 1250."

It might be considered that such a compend of information would be
very dry-as-dust reading and that it would be fragmentary in character
and little likely to be attractive except to a serious student. Dr.
Pagel's opinion does not agree with this _a priori_ impression. He
says with regard to Vincent's work: "The language is clear, readily
intelligible, and the information is conveyed usually in an excellent,
simple style. Through the introduction of interesting similes the
contents do not lack a certain taking quality, so that the reading of
the work easily becomes absorbing." This is, I suppose, almost the
last thing that might be expected of a scientific teacher in the
thirteenth century, because, after all, Vincent of Beauvais must be
considered as one of the schoolmen, and they are supposed to be
eminently arid, but evidently, since we must trust this testimony of a
discerning modern German physician, only by those who have not taken
the trouble to read them.

Vincent of Beauvais was not the only one to occupy himself with work
of an encyclopedic character during the thirteenth century. At least
two other clergymen gave themselves up to the life-long work of
collecting details of information so as to make them available for
ready reference in their own times and for succeeding generations. The
very fact that three men should have taken up such a task, shows that
there must have been a loud call for this sort of writing, and that
there must have been a veritable thirst for information among the
educated classes of the time. Such books, as we have said, are not
created without a demand for them, though {338} they undoubtedly serve
in turn to awaken a greater thirst for the information which they
purvey. The other two encyclopedists of the time are Thomas
Cantipratano and Bartholomaeus Anglicus, the Englishman.

Thomas of Cantimprato's work was probably published about 1260. Von
Toeply, in his Studies in Anatomy in the Middle Ages, has the most
readily available information with regard to Thomas's work. [Footnote
42] The wo