Lutheran humanist scholar, one of the most advanced thinkers in Norway in his day.

Born on a farm, Beyer was adopted by a bishop after the death of his parents and educated at the universities of Copenhagen and Wittenberg, where he studied under the famous Protestant Reformation scholar Philipp Melanchthon (Melanchthon, Philipp). Beyer was a lecturer at the Bergen Cathedral School. In an age when Norway was subject to Denmark, his principal work, Om Norgis rige (“Concerning the Kingdom of Norway”), written in 1567 but not published until 1781, displays an interest in Norway's past and embodies the first stirrings of nationalistic sentiment. It is also the principal work of the so-called Bergen humanism, which produced historical and topographical works.