Bartholomaeus Anglicus

Bartholomaeus Anglicus (flourished c. 1220–40) was a Franciscan encyclopaedist who was long famous for his encyclopaedia, De proprietatibus rerum (“On the Properties of Things”).

Bartholomaeus lectured in divinity at the University of Paris and became a Franciscan about 1225. Though primarily interested in Scripture and theology, he covered in his 19-volume encyclopaedia all the customary knowledge of his time and was the first writer to make conveniently available the views of Greek, Jewish, and Arabic scholars on medical and scientific subjects. The immense popularity of his work is shown by the very large number of manuscript copies of it found in European libraries and by the fact that it was regularly lent out to scholars at the University of Paris. Translated into English by John of Trevisa and printed about 1495, it was highly influential in Tudor England.