letters) is a rich source of information about various matters, both ecclesiastical and
secular, including the world of learning and spirituality. Although Peter and Bernard of
Clairvaux were in opposition on matters of monastic discipline and practice, they
remained friends throughout life, as their letters reveal. Peter’s health was never good,
and he probably suffered from malaria on several occasions and from chronic bronchitis.
Peter’s election to the abbacy of Cluny came at a time when the order needed a firm
hand, following the disastrous abbacy of Pons de Melgeuil and the brief four-month
abbacy of Hugues II. Monastic discipline was lax; finances needed attention; the large
sprawling Cluniac order needed an effective leader. Peter rose to the occasion. He began
to enforce a more strict discipline, attended to finances, and traveled often to deal with
problems within the order. He was moderate in demands, conservative in outlook,
conciliatory in approach, and thoughtful in controversy. Peter became enmeshed in the
controversy between Cistercians and Cluniacs, which was marked by heated exchanges
on both sides. Peter’s Letter 28, a response (if not directly, at least in effect) to Bernard of
Clairvaux’s Apologia ad Guillelmum as well as the general Cistercian attack on Cluniac
laxity in discipline and departure from the Rule of St. Benedict, is a carefully reasoned
defense of the Cluniac way of life and offers one of the best sources for understanding
both the conflict and the Cluniac point of view. Peter was no idle defender of the status
quo, however; he actively reformed and strengthened Cluniac discipline.
Peter wrote against both heresy (the Petrobrusians [Tractatus adversos Petrobrusianos
haereticos]) and non-Christian religions (Judaism [Adversos Judaeorum inveteratum
duritiem] and Islam [Epistola de translatione sua; Summa totius haeresis
Saracenorum]). After a journey to Spain in 1142, he commissioned a translation of the
Qur’an, the first into Latin, and other Arabic texts, so that he might better understand
Islam in order to refute it with reason rather than force. In writing against Judaism, he
respected the Hebrew version of Scripture and argued without special pleading from
Christian Scripture, i.e. the New Testament.
In addition to his numerous journeys in France, Peter traveled to England (1130 and
1155), Spain (1142; perhaps 1124 and 1127), and Rome (1139 [Lateran Council], 1144,
1145, 1147, 1151–52, 1154). He extended the hospitality of Cluny to Peter Abélard after
Abélard’s condemnation at Sens in 1140. Peter the Venerable wrote to Héloïse a sensitive
letter giving a detailed account of Abélard’s last days. In addition to the works mentioned
above, his writings include sermons, liturgical texts (including an Office of the
Transfiguration), hymns, and a treatise recounting holy lives (De miraculis). He was an
exemplar of the best of the Benedictine tradition.
Grover A.Zinn
[See also: ABÉLARD, PETER; ARABIC INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE;
BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX; CISTERCIAN ORDER; CLUNIAC ORDER; CLUNY;
HÉLOÏSE; PETER DE BRUYS; VÉZELAY]
Peter the Venerable. Opera omnia. PL 189.61–1054.
——. The Letters of Peter the Venerable, ed. Giles Constable. 2 vols. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1967.
Constable, Giles, ed. Petrus Venerabilis, 1156–1956: Studies and Texts Commemorating the Eighth
Centenary of His Death. Rome: Herder, 1956.
Knowles, David. The Historian and Character. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963, pp.
50–75.
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