embodied in a 'new constitution', which required that a fourth part of the canons, besides the quatuor personae, should always be in residence; if for reasonable cause (other than the admitted exemptions) a canon did not keep his turn, he was to pay one-fifth of the value of his prebend. Peter of Blois was no longer living at this date, but we shall see that this particular regulation was of older standing and had been bitterly resented by him.
His connexion with Salisbury was of long standing. It began with the friendship of Reginald the archdeacon of Salisbury, who had helped him when he was a poor student at Paris. On his return from Sicily he had again sought Reginald, and he wrote more than once in his defence to the friends of Becket, pleading that Reginald's filial love compelled him to take the part of Bishop Jocelin his father, who had fallen under the exiled archbishop's displeasure (Epp. 24, 45).
It would seem that the bishop of Salisbury had promised to send his nephews to Paris as pupils of Peter; but in Ep. 51 Peter complains that this arrangement had fallen through, and that an annual pension which the bishop had secured to him by a written bond was not being paid. In Ep. 230 he recalls to Reginald the services which he had rendered to the church of Salisbury, and the very meagre return which he had received: he asks his aid in obtaining the next vacant prebend. He could indeed get letters directed to him from the king of England and from the pope; but he prefers to look to Reginald's own generosity. This letter may have been written about 1172: the reference to K. Henry reminds us of Peter's statement that it was at the king's request that he first came to England. At what time he obtained his prebend we do not know. It was not uncommon for a bishop to grant to a clerk an annual pension until he should be provided with a benefice, and where this was done promotion was apt to follow quickly.
Herbert Poore was appointed to the see of Salisbury in 1194. In December 1197 he followed the lead of Bishop Hugh of Lincoln in resisting the king's demand for 300 knights to serve for a year in Normandy. The revenues of both sees were thereupon confiscated. It is to this occasion that we must refer a letter (Ep. 246) in which Peter condoles with the bishop. A visit to Normandy however secured the king's forgiveness, and Herbert returned in June 1198. In March of this year his brother, Richard Poore, had become dean of Salisbury. The removal of the cathedral church from its inconvenient position within the fortifications of Old Sarum was now planned, and the consent of K. Richard was obtained. Peter writes
