Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beaufeu, Robert de

by Edward Maunde Thompson

BEAUFEU, BELLOFAGO, or BELLOFOCO, ROBERT de (fl. 1190), was a secular canon of Salisbury. Educated at Oxford he gained, at an early age, a reputation for learning, and became the friend of Giraldus Cambrensis, Walter Map, and other scholars. He is said to have written a work entitled 'Encomium Topographiæ,' after hearing the 'Topographia Hiberniæ' of Giraldus read by the author at a festival at Oxford. A second work, 'Monita salubria,' is also attributed to him by Bale; and a poem in praise of ale, 'Versus de commendatione Cervisiæ,' in a manuscript in the Cambridge University Library (Gg. vi. 42), bears his name.

[Bale, iii. 36; Works of Giraldus Cambr. (Rolls Series), vol. i. 1861, p. 72, vol. iii. 1863, p. 92; Wright's Biog. Brit. Lit. Anglo-Norman Period, 1846. p. 469.]

E. M. T.