¹ The last short appraisal of Peter Comestor’s achievement in the light of available evidence was published by Daly, S.R., ‘Peter Comestor, Master of Histories’, Speculum, xxxii (1957), pp. 62–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² Martin, R., ‘Notes sur l’oeuvre littéraire de Pierre le Mangeur’, RTAM, iii (1931), pp. 54–66Google Scholar. Landgraf, A.M., ‘Recherches sur les écrits de Pierre le Mangeur’, RTAM, iii (1931), pp. 292–306, 341–72Google Scholar. See also Weisweiler, H., ‘Eine neue frühe Glosse zum vierten Buch der Sentenzen des Petrus Lombardus’, Aus der Geisteswelt des Mittelalters=Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophic und der Theologie des Mitlelalters, Supplementband iii, 1 (Münster in Westfalen, 1935), pp. 360–400Google Scholar, and Martin, R.M. (ed.), Pierre le Mangeur, De sacramentis=Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense, xvii, Appendix (Louvain, 1937).Google Scholar

³ Brady, I., ‘Peter Manducator and the Oral Teachings of Peter Lombard’, Antonianum, xli (1966), pp. 454–90Google Scholar; Brady, I. (ed.), Magistri Petri Lombardi … Sententiae in IV Libris Distinctae. Editio tenia … tomus II. Liber III. et IV=Spicilegium Bonaventurianum, v (Grottaferrata, 1981), p. 39*Google Scholar. The Questions of Peter Comestor are questions 288-334 in Pitra’s, J.P. edition of the Questiones Magistri Odonis Suessionis=Analecta novissima Spicilegii Solesmensis. Continuatio altera, ii (Paris and Frascati, 1888), pp. 98–197.Google Scholar

⁴ Walter of Victor, St, Contra IV Labyrinthos Franciae, ed. Glorieux, P., ‘Le Contra Quatuor Labyrinthos Franciae de Gauthier de Saint Victor’, AHDLMA, xix (1952), pp. 187–335, at p. 320, lines 12-35Google Scholar. See on this Brady, Petri Lombardi… Sententiae, … tomus II. Liber III et IV, Prolegomena, pp. 40*-42*.

⁵ The evidence is set forth by Brady, ‘Peter Manducator and the Oral Teachings of Peter Lombard’, pp. 484-5 and 465. The anonymous writer of a gloss on the fourth book of the Sentences mentions the case of a Breton who became a monk and priest at St Martin of Tours, and who died while still unbaptized: ‘Quesitum est a magistro Johanne, quid faciendum de illo, vel utrum salvus esset. [Sed se dixit] omnino ignorare. Hoc idem dicit M[agister] P[etrus] Man[ducator], qui ibidem erat quando hoc contigit’. Furthermore, in question 326 (ed. Pitra, p. 167) Peter Manducator indicates that John of Tours had taught him.

⁶ See again Brady, ‘Peter Manducator and the Oral Teachings of Peter Lombard’, p. 465 ‘M[agister] P[etrus] A[baelardus] dicebat … sic audivi ilium docentem’ (Question 298, ed. Pitra, p. 113).

⁷ ‘XII Kal. Nov. [21 October]: Obiit magister Petrus Manducator, Sancti Petri decanus et canonicus Sancti Lupi, qui sepultus est apud Sanctum Victorem Parisiensem’, ed. A. Longnon, Obituaires de la Province de Sens (Paris, 1923), IV (Diocèses de Meaux et de Troyes), p. 297C. The day of his death is said to be XI Kal. Nov. [22 October) in the necrology of Notre Dame, Paris, which describes Peter as Petrus Manducator, cancellarius, ed. B. Guérard, Collection des Cartulaires de France, VII. Cartulaire de I’Eglise Notre Dame de Paris (Paris, 1850), IV, 172. See too Brady, ‘Peter Manducator and the Oral Teachings of Peter Lombard’, pp. 483-4. Peter is described as noster canonicus in the obituary of St Victor. See Molinier, A., Obituaires de la Province de Sens, I. Diocèses de Sens et de Paris=Recueil des historiens de la France, publiés par l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres. Obituaires, 1 (Paris, 1902), p. 593Google Scholar and it is possible that he was counted as one of the community in his last years.

⁸ See especially Smalley, Bible, chapter 5. See further Smalley, ‘The Bible in the Medieval Schools’, CHB, ii, pp. 197-220, at p. 206.

⁹ See especially Smalley, Bible, chapters 3 and 4.

¹⁰ Ibid., pp. 98-9.

¹¹ Ibid., pp. 178-80; Smalley, , ‘The School of Andrew of St. Victor’, RTAM, xi (1939). pp. 145–67Google Scholar. Also (briefly) Smalley, ‘L’exégèse biblique du xii^e siecle’, Entretiens sur la renaissance du xii^e siécle sous la direction de M. de Gandillac et E. Jeauneau=Décades du Centre culturel international de Cerisy-la-Salle, ns, ix (1968), pp. 273-93. at p. 279.

¹² Smalley, Bible, p. 200.

¹³ Smalley, B., ‘The Gospels in the Paris Schools in the late Twelfth and early Thirteenth Centuries, I’, Franc Stud, xxxix (1979), pp. 230–54, at p. 231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ Landgraf, ‘Recherches’ pp. 366-72.

¹⁵ Stegmüller, Bibl., iv, nos 6575-8.

¹⁶ Smalley, , ‘Gospels in the Paris Schools’, p. 231Google Scholar; Smalley, , ‘Peter Comestor on the Gospels and his Sources’, RTAM, xlvi (1979), pp. 84–129, at p. 95Google Scholar. The Enarrationes in S. Matthaeum are attributed to Anselm of Laon in the incomplete edition of PL clxii, 1227-1500. On Comestor’s, Peter sources see especially Smalley, ‘Some Gospel Commentaries of the Early Twelfth Century’, RTAM, xlv (1978), pp. 147–80, at pp. 150–7 and 166–80.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Smalley, B., ‘An Early Paris Lecture Course on St Luke’, ‘Sapientiae Doctrina’: Mélanges de théologie et de liltérature médiévales offerts à Dom Hildebrand Bascour O.S.B. = RTAM, numéro spécial, i (1980), pp. 299–311Google Scholar. In this paper Beryl Smalley brought to light an anonymous secular clerk or priest who gave the first-known Paris lecture course on a Gospel. He prepared his Commentary before Peter Comestor gave his own lectures on the Gospels and perhaps after c. 1156; his Commentary survives in the notes made by the Master himself, who used a glossed text of St Luke, as did Peter Lombard and Peter Comestor. The importance of her discovery is that Peter Comestor now appears less original on account of his lectures on the Gospels, but he also appears more competent and able than his unknown predecessor, who belongs to the ‘lesser fry of the schools’. On p. 303 she mentions that the author cites two opinions on the priest’s part in the remission of sin: ‘Solvite hac pena, secundum magistrum Hugonem, vel solvite, id est ostendere solutum in culpa, secundum magistrum Petrum, quia quecumque solveritis hac pena, secundum magistrum Hugonem, vel solveritis, id est ostendens, secundum magistrum Petrum, erunt soluta et in celo’. Hugh is clearly Hugh of St Victor, but Beryl Smalley may be too confident in identifying Peter with Peter Lombard. Peter Lombard held the view here attributed to him, but so did Peter Abelard, and in general writers in the twelfth century who contrasted the teachings of Hugh and of Peter were writing in the course of the disputes between the adherents of the ‘schools’ of St Victor and of Abelard. See for detail Luscombe, D.E., The School of Peter Abelard (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 195–6, 278–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. None of the evidence cited by Beryl Smalley certainly proves that the writer was teaching after Peter Lombard composed his Sentences (1155-8). An earlier date for these lectures, perhaps as early as the late 1130s, is not out of the question, and might explain better why their author shows no knowledge of Peter Comestor’s own lectures.

¹⁸ Brady, (ed.) Magistri Petri Lombardi … Sententiae, … tomus II. Liber III et IV, Prolegomena, pp. 42*–44*Google Scholar. Brady believes that Peter Comestor provides sure evidence that Peter Lombard glossed, besides the Psalter and St Paul, Luke, Matthew, and Mark, as well as the Twelve Minor Prophets.

¹⁹ Smalley, ‘Gospels in the Paris Schools’, pp. 231-2; Smalley, ‘Peter Comestor on the Gospels’, pp. 124-8.

²⁰ Smalley, ‘Peter Comestor on the Gospels’, pp. 115-23.

²¹ The Prologue was published by Martin, ‘Notes sur l’oeuvre littéraire de Pierre le Mangeur’, pp. 60-4. He had discovered it in Madrid, Real Academia de la Historia, MS 24 (F.208). See too Weisweiler, ‘Eine neue frühe Glosse’.

²² See Landgraf, ‘Recherches’ pp. 350-7; also Lottin, O., ‘Le Prologue des Gloses sur les Sentences attribuées à Pierre de Poitiers’, RTAM, vii (1935). pp. 70–3Google Scholar. The same may be true of Peter Comestor’s Prologue to the Gospel glosses; BN, MS lat., 16794, a twelfth-century MS from St Martin des Champs, has a commentary on St Matthew which begins with an abbreviation of Peter Comestor’s Prologue.

²³ Stegmüller, Bibl., 6574, 1, 3 and 4. The MSS are Troyes 770 and Rouen 129 (A 518); also Berlin (GDR), Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, MS Lat. Fol. 848.

²⁴ See above, n. 2.

²⁵ For example, the BL, MS Add. 34807 lacks the section on penance, and in the Trinity College, Dublin, MS C.2.14 the extracts on the Eucharist and on penance are arranged in a different order.

²⁶ About 150 sermons are attributed to Peter Comestor with varying degrees of reliability in MSS of the late twelfth and early thirteenth century. Fifty sermons by Peter are printed in Migne; some of these are under the name of Hildebert in PL clxxi, 330-964, others in PL cxcviii, 1721-1844. Landgraf, ‘Recherches’ p. 292, n. 3, indicated the existence of unprinted collections of sermons attributed to Peter Comestor. In two important articles Lebreton, M.M., ‘Recherches sur les manuscrits contenant des sermons de Pierre le Mangeur’, Bulletin d’information de l’Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes, ii (1953), pp. 25–44Google Scholar; iv (1955), pp. 35-6 (Additions et corrections), compiled a list of sermons which could be claimed for Peter Comestor on grounds of style and of other characteristic features of expression such as the use of distinctions. She listed 155 sermons collected from 36 MSS. More recently Peter Tibber has revised Lebreton’s conclusions, and has established the contents of what he calls the ‘standard collection’ of Peter’s sermons in ‘The Origins of the Scholastic Sermon, 1130-1210’ (unpub. D. Phil., Oxford, 1983). This consistently presents 40 sermons and is found in at least 30 MSS of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Tibber has therefore reduced the number of sermons claimed for Peter by Lebreton, but has increased their importance by showing how widely and rapidly they were disseminated. Tibber’s admirable work is shortly to be published. What Peter Comestor said in his Sermons about Christ, the Church, Virtues, and Vices has been carefully examined by Longère, J., Oeuvres oratoires de maîtres parisiens au XII^e Siècle. Etude historique et doctrinale=Etudes augustiniennes (Paris, 1975), i, pp. 20–1, 96–114, 302–10Google Scholar; ii, pp. 19-20, 85-93, 233-7.

²⁷ PL exeviii, 1053-1644. A critical edition is much needed and would help many kinds of student since Peter Comestor’s work was so very widely read during the Middle Ages.

²⁸ Smalley, ‘Some Gospel Commentaries of the Early Twelfth century’, p. 150.

²⁹ PL cxcviii, 1558. He associates the former approach with Ammonius of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Theophilus of Antioch.

³⁰ Ibid., 1055 C.

³¹ Ibid., 1057 A.

³² Ibid., 1061 D.

³³ Ibid., 1066 C.

³⁴ Ibid., 1067 D.

³⁵ Stegmüller, Bibl., iv, 6543-65.

³⁶ PL cxcviii, 1645-1722. See Moore, P.S., The Works of Peter of Poitiers, Master in Theology and Chancellor of Paris (1193-1205) (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1936), pp. 118–22.Google Scholar

³⁷ Martin, ‘Notes’, pp. 56-7. Landgraf, ‘Recherches’, pp. 357-66. See also Moore, P.S., ‘The Authorship of the Allegoriae super vetus et novum testamentum ’, New Scholasticism, ix (1935), pp. 208–25.Google Scholar

³⁸ The Allegoriae are printed in PL clxxv and the section on Paul is found at columns 879-924.

³⁹ PL clxxv, 431-634.

⁴⁰ The first part of the Excerptiones allegoricae is printed in PL clxxvii, 191-284; the Allegoriae are the second part.

⁴¹ Landgraf, ‘Recherches’, p. 361: ‘Proposuerat enim forsitan componere allegorias, quod tamen non invenimus fecisse Magistrum’, ed. G. Lacombe, ‘Studies on the Commentaries of Cardinal Stephen Langton (Part I)’, AHDLMA, v (1930), pp. 5-151, at p. 44.

⁴² Châtillon, J. (ed.), Richard de Saint-Victor, Liber exceptionum. Texte critique avec introduction, notes et tables=Textes philosophiques du moyen äge, v (Paris, 1958), pp. 75–7, 78–81.Google Scholar

⁴³ Robson, C. A., ‘The Pecia of the Twelfth-Century Paris School’, Dominican Studies, ii (1944), pp. 262–79Google Scholar, and Maurice of Sully and the Medieval Vernacular Homily (Oxford, 1952).

⁴⁴ Graham Pollard has recently traced its beginnings to the University of Bologna about the year 1200, ‘The Pecia System in the Medieval Universities’, Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries. Essays presented to N.R. Ker, ed. M.B. Parkes and A.G. Watson (London, 1978), pp. 145-61.

⁴⁵ Raciti, G., ‘L’autore del De spiritu et anima ’, Rivista di filosofia neoscolastica, liii (1961), pp. 385–401Google Scholar. De spiritu et anima is printed in PL xl, 779-832, the Meditations in PL clxxxiv, 485-507, De conscientia in PL clxxxiv, 507-552, the Manuale in PL xl, 949-68, and De diligendo Deo in PL xl, 847-64.

⁴⁶ Raciti, ‘L’autore’, p. 398 and note.

⁴⁷ Ibid., p. 397.

⁴⁸ Ibid., p. 399.

⁴⁹ Wilmart, A., Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots du moyeti âge latin (Paris, 1932; reprinted 1971), p. 175Google Scholar. n.3, hesitated over ascribing the work to Alcher of Clairvaux simply because ‘il est toujours plus commode d’avoir affaire à une personne qu’à un traité anonyme’: cited by Raciti, ‘L’autore, p. 386.

⁵⁰ The Libellus is found in Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS E.69 sup., s.XV, perhaps from Chiaravalle in Milan.

⁵¹ Landgraf, ‘Recherches’, pp. 293-306. Also Martin, ‘Notes’, pp. 64-6.

⁵² Smalley, ‘The Gospels in the Paris Schools’, pp. 233-4, citing Peter the Chanter, Verbum abbreviatum, PL ccv, 27-8. This was written in 1191/2.

⁵³ Summa de Sacramentis et Animae Consiliis, ed. J. A. Dugauquier, Analecta Mediaevalia Namurcensia, 4, 7, 11, 16, 21 (1954-67), 16, p. 163.

⁵⁴ Stegmüller, Bibl., iv, pp. 288-90 lists the MSS. See further CHB, ii, pp. 320, 382-3, 430, 448, 471.

⁵⁵ Stegmüller, Bibl., iv, 6566.

⁵⁶ Smalley, Bible., pp. 214-15.

⁵⁷ Ibid.

⁵⁸ Dante, Divine Comedy, III, cant, xii, 134.