turned his back on England to join the crusade of the emperor Frederick II. He was absent from England until 1231; but in the meantime enhanced his reputation both as a soldier and diplomatist. After the fall of De Burgh he kept in the background, but offices and honours were heaped on his dependants, especially on his nephew, Peter des Rievaulx, and other Poitevins. This foreign party triumphed over the revolt which was headed by Richard Marshal in 1233. But the primate, Edmund Rich, voiced the general feeling when he denounced Peter as a mischief maker, and demanded that he should be dismissed from court. The king complied, and threatened the bishop with charges of malversation. Peter was however permitted to leave the country with a pardon (1235); he conciliated Gregory IX. by rendering efficient aid in a war with the citizens of Rome (1235); and in the next year returned without molestation to his see. He was invited to go as the king’s envoy to the court of Frederick II., but refused apparently on the score of ill health. His public reconciliation with De Burgh (1236), effected through the mediation of the papal legate, provided a dramatic close to their long rivalry, but had no political significance, since both were now living in retirement. Peter died in 1238, and was buried at Winchester. He was undoubtedly a man of a winning personality, a good diplomat and financier, a statesman whose unpopularity was due in some measure to his freedom from the insularity of the Englishmen, against whom he matched himself. But his name is associated with a worthless clique of favourites, and with the first steps which were taken by Henry III. to establish a feeble and corrupt autocracy.
See C. Petit Dutaillis, Vie et règne de Louis VIII. (Paris, 1894); Lecointre Dupont, Pierre des Roches (Poitiers, 1868); Stubbs’s Constitutional History of England, vol. ii.; H. W. C. Davis, England under the Normans and Angevins (1905); T. F. Tout in the Political History of England, vol. iii. (1905). (H. W. C. D.)
PETER LOMBARD (c. 1100–c. 1160), bishop of Paris, better known as Magister sententiarum, the son of obscure parents,
was born about the beginning of the 12th century, at Novara
(then reckoned as belonging to Lombardy). After receiving
his education at Bologna, he removed to France, bearing a
recommendation to Bernard of Clairvaux, who first placed him
under Lotolf at Reims, and afterwards sent him to Paris with
letters to Gilduin, the abbot of St Victor. He soon became
known as a teacher, and obtained a theological chair in the
cathedral school. His famous textbook, the Sententiae, was
written between 1145 and 1150. On the 29th of June 1159 he
became bishop of Paris. The accounts of his bishopric are
satisfactory. There is a charge that he was guilty of simony,
having received his office through the favour of Philip, brother
of Louis VII., his former pupil. The date of his death is
uncertain. According to one account he died on the 20th of
July 1160, and as Maurice de Sully became bishop that year the
statement seems probable. Yet there is evidence for a later
date, and he may have been set aside for simony.
His famous theological handbook, Sententiarum libri quatuor, is, as the title implies, primarily a collection of opinions of the fathers, “sententiae patrum.” These are arranged, professedly on the basis of the aphorism of Augustine, Lombard’s favourite authority, that “omnis doctrina vel rerum est vel signorum,” into four books, of which the first treats of God, the second of the creature, the third of the incarnation, the work of redemption, and the virtues, and the fourth of the seven sacraments and eschatology. The Sententiae show the influence of Abelard, both in method and arrangement, but lack entirely the daring of Sic et Non. Compared with that book they are tame. Gratian’s Concordia discordantium canonum, as he called his Decretum, was another strong influence, Lombard doing in a sense for theology what Gratian did for the canon law. The influence of Hugh of St Victor is also marked. The relation to the “sentences” of a Gandulph of Bologna (still unpublished) has not been established. The most important thing in the book was its crystallization of the doctrine concerning the sacramental system, by the definite assertion of the doctrine of the seven sacraments, and the acceptance of a definition of sacrament, not merely as “a sign of a sacred thing,” but as itself “capable of conveying the grace of which it is the sign”. The sentences soon attained immense popularity. ultimately becoming the text-book in almost every theological school, and giving rise to endless commentaries, over 180 Of these being written in England. In 1300 the theological professors of Paris agreed in the rejection of sixteen propositions taken from Lombard, but their decision was far from obtaining universal currency.
Besides the Sententiae, Lombard wrote numerous commentaries (e.g. on the Psalms, Canticles, Job, the Gospel Harmony, and the Pauline Epistles), sermons and letters, which still exist in MS. The Glossae seu commentarius in psalmos Davidis, were first published at Paris in 1533.
Lombard’s collected works have been published in J. P. Migne’s Patrologie latine, Tome 191 and 192. See also Denifle and Chatelain, Chartularium universitatis parisiensis, Tome i. (Paris, 1889); Protois, Pierre Lombard, son époque, sa vie, ses écrits, son influence (Paris, 1881); Kögel, Petrus Lombard in seiner Stellung zur Philosophie des Mittelalters (Leipzig, 1897); A Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, Bd. iii. (1890; Eng. trans. 1894–1899); and the article in Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie, Bd. xi. (Leipzig, 1902).
PETER OF AIGUEBLANCHE (d. 1268), bishop of Hereford, belonged to a noble family of Savoy and came to England in
1236 with his master, William of Savoy, bishop of Valence, being
in attendance on Eleanor of Provence, the bride of Henry III.
A year or two later he is found residing permanently in England
as a member of the king’s court, before 1239 he was archdeacon
of Salop, and in 1240 he was chosen bishop of Hereford. In
1255 Peter acted as Henry’s principal agent in the matter
of accepting the kingdom of Sicily from Pope Alexander IV.
for his son Edmund, and his rapacious and dishonest methods
of raising money for this foolish enterprise added not a little
to the unpopularity which surrounded the king and his foreign
favourites. When civil war broke out between Henry and his
barons the bishop remained loyal to his master, and whilst
residing, almost for the first time, at Hereford he was taken
prisoner in May 1263. He was, however, released when the
king and his enemies came to terms, and after a stay in France
he retired to Savoy, where he died on the 27th of November
1268.
See F. Mugnier, Les Savoyards en Angleterre au XIIIᵉ siècle et Pierre d’ Aigueblanche (Chambéry, 1890).
PETER OF BLOIS [Petrus Blesensis] (c. 1135–c. 1205), French writer, the son of noble Breton parents, was born at Blois. He studied jurisprudence at Bologna and theology in Paris, and in 1167 he went to Sicily, where he became tutor to the young king William II., and keeper of the royal seal (sigillarius). But he made many enemies and soon asked permission to leave the country; his request was granted and about 1170 he
returned to France. After spending some time teaching in
Paris and serving Rotrou de Perche, archbishop of Rouen, as secretary, Peter entered the employ of Henry II. of England about 1173. He quickly became archdeacon of Bath and soon afterwards chancellor, or secretary, to Richard, archbishop of Canterbury, and to Richard’s successor, Baldwin, being sent on two occasions to Italy to plead the cause of these prelates before the pope. After the death of Henry II. in 1189, he was for a time secretary to his widow, Eleanor, in Normandy; he
obtained the posts of dean of Wolverhampton and archdeacon of London, but he appears to have been very discontented in his later years. He died some time after March 1204.
Peter’s writings fall into four classes, letters, treatises, sermons and poems. His Epistolae, which were collected at the request of Henry II., are an important source for the history of the time; they are addressed to Henry II. and to various prelates and scholars, including Thomas Becket and John of Salisbury. His treatises include De Ierosolymitana peregrinatione acceleranda, an exhortation to take part in the third crusade, and Dialogus inter regem Henricum II. et abbatem Bonaevallensem; his extant sermons number 65 and his poems are unimportant. Peter’s works have been printed in several collections, including the Patrologia of J. P. Migne and the Historiae francorum scriptores of A. Duchesne. Of separate editions the best are those by Pierre de Goussainville (Paris, 1667) and J. A. Giles (Oxford, 1846–1847).
See the Histoire litteraire de la France, Tome xv.; W. Stubbs, Lectures on Medieval and Modern History (Oxford, 1886); Sir T. D. Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue of Materials relating to the History of Great Britain (1862–1867), and C. L. Kingsford in vol. xlv. of the Dictionary of National Biography (1896).
PETER OF COURTENAY (d. 1219), emperor of Romania (or Constantinople), was a son of Peter of Courtenay (d. 1183), and a grandson of the French king, Louis VI. Having, by a first marriage, obtained the counties of Nevers and Auxerre, he took
