Saint-Sever Abbey in the context of William II Sánchez of Gascony

The Beatus map or Beatine map is one of the most significant cartographic works of the European Early Middle Ages. It was originally drawn by the Spanish monk Beatus of Liébana, based on the accounts given by Isidore of Seville, Ptolemy and the Hebrew Bible. Although the original manuscript is lost, there remain several copies extant, which retain a high fidelity with respect to the original.

The map is shown in the prologue of the second book of Beatus' work Commentary on the Apocalypse. Its main goal is not to show a cartographically exact depiction of the world and its continents, but to illustrate the initial dispersion of the Apostles.

The Commentary on the Apocalypse (Commentaria in Apocalypsin) is a Latin commentary on the biblical Book of Revelation written around 776 by the Spanish monk and theologian Beatus of Liébana (c. 730–after 785). The surviving texts differ somewhat, and the work is mainly famous for the spectacular illustrations in a group of illustrated manuscripts, mostly produced on the Iberian Peninsula over the following five centuries. There are 29 surviving illustrated manuscripts (many incomplete or fragments) dating from the 9th to the 13th centuries, as well as other unillustrated and later manuscripts. Significant copies include the Morgan, Saint-Sever, Gerona, Osma, Madrid (Vitr 14-1), and Tábara Beatus codices.

Most unusually for a theological work, the imagery seems to have been included from the start, and is considered to be the work of Beatus himself, although the earliest surviving manuscripts date from about a century after he wrote the book. After about another century, around 950, the size and number of illustrations was expanded. Manuscripts of the work are typically referred to just as a Beatus. They included a Beatus map, a version of the medieval type of world map called the T and O map with added details; this is supposed to have been created by Beatus. It has only survived in some copies.

The Saint-Sever Beatus, also known as the Apocalypse of Saint-Sever (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 8878), is a Romanesque Illuminated manuscript from the 11th century. The manuscript was made at Saint-Sever Abbey, then in the Duchy of Gascony, under the direction of Gregory of Montaner, abbot between 1028 and 1072. It is believed that the primary artist-scribe who illustrated the manuscript was Stephanus Garsia (who signed his name on folio 6), working alongside other unnamed individuals.

The manuscript contains the Commentary on the Apocalypse of Beatus of Liébana, a commentary on Daniel by Saint Jerome and a treatise on the Virgin Mary by Saint Ildefonsus. Parts of it are displayed in the Musée des Jacobins in Saint-Sever.