for his second wife, Yolande (d. 1219), a sister of Baldwin and Henry of Flanders, who were afterwards the first and second emperors of the Latin Empire of Constantinople. Peter accompanied his cousin, King Philip Augustus, on the crusade of 1190, fought against the Albigenses, and was present at the battle of Bouvines in 1214. When his brother-in-law, the emperor Henry, died without sons in 1216, Peter was chosen as his successor, and with a small army set out from France to take possession of his throne. Consecrated emperor at Rome, in a church outside the walls, by Pope Honorius III. on the 9th of April 1217, he borrowed some ships from the Venetians, promising in return to conquer Durazzo for them; but he failed in this enterprise, and sought to make his way to Constantinople by land. On the journey he was seized by the despot of Epirus, Theodore Angelus, and, after an imprisonment of two years, died, probably by foul means. Peter thus never governed his empire, which, however, was ruled for a time by his wife, Yolande, who had succeeded in reaching Constantinople. Two of his sons, Robert and Baldwin, became in turn emperors of Constantinople.
PETER OF DUISBURG (d. c. 1326), German chronicler, was
born at Duisburg, and became a priest-brother of the Teutonic
Order. He wrote the Chronicon terrae Prussiae, dedicated to
the grand-master, Werner of Orseln, which is one of the chief
authorities for the history of the order in Prussia. There is a
rhyming translation in German by Nicholas of Jeroschin, which,
together with the original, is published in Bd. I. of the
Scriptores rerum prussicarum (Leipzig, 1861).
See M. Töppen, Geschichte der preussischen Historiographie (Berlin, 1853), and W. Fuchs, Peter von Duisburg und das Chronicon olivense (Königsberg, 1884).
PETER OF MARICOURT (13th century), a French savant, to
whom his disciple, Roger Bacon, pays the highest tribute in his
opus tertium and other works. According to Bacon he was a
recluse who devoted himself to the study of nature, was able to
work metals, invented armour and assisted St Louis in one of
his expeditions more than his whole army. According to Emile
Charles (Roger Bacon sa vie, ses ouvrages, ses doctrines, 1861),
Peter of Maricourt is the Pierre Pérégrin (or Pèlerin) de Maricourt
(Méharicourt in Picardy), known also as Petrus Peregrinus of
Picardy, one of whose letters, De magnete, is partly reproduced
in Libri’s Hist. des sciences mathématiques en Italie (1838), ii.
70–71, 487–505.
PETER OF SAVOY (c. 1203–1268), earl of Richmond, younger
son of Thomas I. (Tommaso), count of Savoy, was born at Susa.
After spending some years as an ecclesiastic he resigned his
preferments, and in 1234 married his cousin Agnes, daughter
and heiress of Aymon II., lord of Faucigny. Accepting an
invitation from the English king, Henry III., who had married
his niece, Eleanor of Provence, Peter came to England in 1240,
and was created earl of Richmond, receiving also large estates
and being appointed to several important offices. During
several visits to the continent of Europe Peter had largely
increased his possessions in Vaud and the neighbourhood, and
returning to England in 1252 he became associated with Simon
de Montfort, retaining at the same time the king’s friendship.
Having been employed by Henry to negotiate with the pope
and with Louis IX. of France, he supported Earl Simon in his
efforts to impose restrictions upon the royal power; but, more
moderate than many members of the baronial party, went over
to Henry’s side in 1260, and was consequently removed from the
council. In 1263 he left England, and when his nephew,
Boniface, count of Savoy, died in the same year he assumed the
title of count of Savoy. This was also claimed by another
nephew, Thomas; but Peter compelled the inhabitants of Turin
to submit to him and secured possession of the county. He died
on the 16th or 17th of May 1268, leaving an only child, Beatrice
(d. 1310). Peter gave to the castle of Chillon its present form,
and his name to the Savoy palace in London. He has been
called le petit Charlemagne, and was greatly praised for his valour
and his wisdom.
See L. Wurstemberger, Peter der Zweite, Graf von Savoyen (Zurich, 1858); F. Mugnier, Les Savoyards en Angleterre (Chambéry, 1890); and C. Bémont, Simon de Montfort (Paris, 1884).
PETER THE HERMIT, a priest of Amiens, who may, as Anna Comnena says, have attempted to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem before 1096, and have been prevented by the Turks from reaching his destination. It is uncertain whether he was present at Urban’s great sermon at Clermont in 1095; but it is certain that he was one
of the preachers of the crusade in France after that sermon, and his own experience may have helped to give fire to his eloquence. He soon leapt into fame as an emotional revivalist preacher: his very ass became an object of popular adoration; and thousands
of peasants eagerly took the cross at his bidding. The crusade
of the pauperes, which forms the first act in the first crusade, was
his work; and he himself led one of the five sections of the
pauperes to Constantinople, starting from Cologne in April,
and arriving at Constantinople at the end of July 1096. Here
he joined the only other section which had succeeded in reaching
Constantinople—that of Walter the Penniless; and with the
joint forces, which had made themselves a nuisance by pilfering,
he crossed to the Asiatic shore in the beginning of August. In
spite of his warnings, the pauperes began hostilities against the
Turks; and Peter returned to Constantinople, either in despair
at their recklessness, or in the hope of procuring supplies. In
his absence the army was cut to pieces by the Turks; and he was
left in Constantinople without any followers, during the winter
of 1096–1097, to wait for the coming of the princes. He joined
himself to their ranks in May 1097, with a little following which
he seems to have collected, and marched with them through
Asia Minor to Jerusalem. But he played a very subordinate
part in the history of the first crusade. He appears, in the
beginning of 1098, as attempting to escape from the privations
of the siege of Antioch—showing himself, as Guibert of Nogent
says, a “fallen star.” In the middle of the year he was sent by
the princes to invite Kerbogha to settle all differences by a duel;
and in 1099 he appears as treasurer of the alms at the siege of
Arca (March), and as leader of the supplicatory processions in
Jerusalem which preceded the battle of Ascalon (August).
At the end of the year he went to Laodicea, and sailed thence
for the West. From this time he disappears, but Albert of Aix
records that he died in 1151, as prior of a church of the Holy
Sepulchre which he had founded in France.
Legend has made Peter the Hermit the author and originator of the first crusade. It has told how, in an early visit to Jerusalem, before 1096, Christ appeared to him in the Church of the Sepulchre, and bade him preach the crusade. The legend is without any basis in fact, though it appears in the pages of William of Tyre. Its origin is, however, a matter of some interest. Von Sybel, in his Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzuges, suggests that in the camp of the pauperes (which existed side by side with that of the knights, and grew increasingly large as the crusade told more and more heavily in its progress on the purses of the crusaders) some idolization of Peter the Hermit had already begun, during the first crusade, parallel to the similar glorification of Godfrey by the Lorrainers. In this idolization Peter naturally became the instigator of the crusade, just as Godfrey became the founder of the kingdom of Jerusalem and the legislator of the assizes. This version of Peter’s career seems as old as the Chanson des chétifs, a poem which Raymond of Antioch caused to be composed in honour of the Hermit and his followers, soon after 1130. It also appears in the pages of Albert of Aix, who wrote somewhere about 1130; and from Albert it was borrowed by William of Tyre. The whole legend of Peter is an excellent instance of the legendary amplification of the first crusade—an amplification which, beginning during the crusade itself, in the “idolizations” of the different camps (idola castrorum, if one may pervert Bacon), soon developed into a regular saga. This saga found its most piquant beginning in the Hermit’s vision at Jerusalem, and there it accordingly began—alike in Albert, followed by William of Tyre and in the Chanson des chétifs, followed by the later Chanson d’Antioche.
The original authorities for the story of Peter the Hermit are: for the authentic Peter, Anna Comnena and the Gesta Francorum;
