Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beith, William
BEITH or BEETH, WILLIAM (15th cent.), a Dominican writer, according to Anthony à Wood, spent his early years at Oxford, and was, towards the middle of his life, made provincial of his order for England. The apparent date assigned for his appointment to this office in Altamura's 'Bibliotheca Ordinis Prædicatorum' is 1480; but he does not uppear to have continued to hold it till the time of his death. According to Possevinus he was still living in 1498. Those of Beith's writings whose titles have been preserved include commentaries on the 'Sentences' of Peter Lombard, a treatise 'De Unitate formarum,' and certain 'Lecturæ Scholasticæ.' According to Wood, Beith was a most successful provincial of his order, and achieved a great renown amongst the learned men of Henry VII's reign.
[Pits, 684; Quetif's Scriptores Ord. Pædic. i. 892; Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses (ed. Bliss, 1813), 6; Ambrosius de Altamura (ed. 1677), 203, 521.]