——. Summa de sacramentis, ed. Raymond M.Martin. In Maître Simon et son groupe: De
sacramentis, ed. Heinrich Weisweiler. Louvain: “Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense,” 1937,
appendix.
Smalley, Beryl. The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages. 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.
PETER DE BRUYS
(d. ca. 1140). Peter de Bruys seems to have been a priest from the area of Embrun
(Hautes-Alpes), who, deprived of his office, took to idiosyncratic preaching. He moved
from his parish of Embrun through Languedoc and farther west. Peter’s antiecclesiastical
message attracted large crowds. The sources of his ideas are unclear, although they may
be related to those of the Bogomils. He died at Saint-Gilles, near Nîmes, thrown into a
fire in which he was burning crucifixes.
The beliefs of Peter’s followers, the Petrobrusians, are known to us from the Tractatus
adversos Petrobrusianos haereticos of Peter the Venerable and the Introductio ad
theologiam of Peter Abélard. Believing in the spiritual unity of the church, they rejected
what they saw as the merely external. Hence, they denied sacraments, especially infant
baptism and the Mass, prayers for the dead, church buildings (all places belonged to
God), veneration of crucifixes (as recrucifying Christ), the authority of the church (as
having no foundation), and a large part of the Bible, especially the Old Testament.
Although they rejected these external things as encumbrances, they did not, unlike many
sects of the time, embrace apostolic poverty. Petrobrusians took a literalist view of the
Gospels as depicting historical events, such as the Last Supper, that could have no greater
value through reenactment.
The Petrobrusians believed in direct action: they forced monks to marry, abused
priests, ate meat on fast days, and burned crucifixes. Unsurprisingly, Peter’s teaching was
frequently condemned, as at the Second Lateran Council (1139).
Lesley J.Smith
[See also: HERESY; POPULAR DEVOTION; SAINT-GILLES]
Colish, Marcia L. “Peter of Bruys, Henry of Lausanne, and the Façade of Saint-Gilles.” Traditio 28
(1972):451–60.
Lambert, Malcolm. Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from Bogomil to Hus. London: Arnold,
1976.
Wakefield, W.L., and A.P.Evans. Heresies of the High Middle Ages: Selected Sources Translated
and Annotated. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969.
PETER LOMBARD
(ca. 1100–1160). The “Master of the Sentences,” born and educated in Novara,
Lombardy, arrived in Paris via Reims (ca. 1135) with a letter of recommendation from
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