ed. Jan LaRue. New York: Norton, 1966, pp. 803–17.
Wright, Craig. Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris,
500 –1550. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989,
pp. 288–94.
Sandra Pinegar
PETER COMESTOR (ca. 1000–1178)
Born in Troyes, Peter became in 1147 dean of the ca-
thedral there. Sometime before 1159, he went to Paris,
where he studied under Peter Lombard and later taught
theology. He became chancellor of the cathedral of
Notre-Dame between 1164 and 1168. He died in 1178
and was buried at the abbey of Saint-Victor. Although
known primarily for the Historia scholastica, Peter
wrote other works, including some 150 sermons, the
Summa de sacramentis (based on Peter Lombard’s
Sententiae), some quaestiones, and commentaries on the
Gospels, as well as glosses on the Glossa ordinaria, on
the Magna glossatura of Peter Lombard, and perhaps on
Lombard’s Sententiae. The Historia scholastica, used
in the schools and later in the university curriculum,
was a narrative presentation of biblical history from
Creation through the life of Jesus. Peter here sought to
counteract what he saw as the destruction of the con-
nected literal-historical sense of the text through the
practice of a spiritual exegesis that tended to divide the
text into brief “fragments” for symbolic interpretation.
Peter not only drew upon traditional patristic authors
for the historical sense; he also used Josephus’s Jewish
Antiquities and the commentaries on the Octateuch by
Andrew of Saint-Victor. In a practical way, Peter con-
tinued the emphasis on reading Scripture according to
the literal-historical sense that had been established at
the abbey of Saint-Victor by Hugh of Saint-Victor.
See also Andrew of Saint Victor;
Hugh of Saint-Victor; Peter Lombard
Further Reading
Peter Comestor. Historia scholastica; Sermons. PL 198.1045–
844.
——. 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.
Grover A. Zinn
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 Bernard of
Clairvaux to Abbot Gilduin of Saint-Victor. While he
apparently never taught at the abbey, Peter did preach
there, and he maintained close ties with Saint-Victor
throughout his life.
The Lombard soon made himself a reputation as a
formidable theologian. By 1142–43, he had the dubious
distinction of being named by Gerhoch of Reichersberg
as a dangerous innovator; in 1148, he was summoned
by Pope Eugenius III to the Consistory of Reims to help
judge the orthodoxy of another innovator, Gilbert of
Poitiers, whose christology Peter found lacking. Teach-
ing at Notre-Dame by 1143, he was a canon by 1145
and steadily rose in rank (subdeacon by 1147, deacon
by 1150, archdeacon by 1157). In 1158, his years of
service were crowned by his election as bishop of Paris;
this honor was short-lived, as he died in 1160.
The earliest works of the Lombard are his commen-
taries on the Psalms (before 1138) and on the epistles
of Paul (by 1142). Though Herbert of Bosham reports
that Peter meant them for his personal edifi cation only
and that he never fi nished them, they were swiftly and
widely circulated, often even replacing the marginal-
interlinear glosses for the Psalms and epistles in the
Glossa ordinaria. Known as the Magna glossatura,
they became the most frequently cited works of Scrip-
ture exegesis in the Middle Ages. Peter based his two
commentaries on a close reading of Anselm of Laon’s
glosses and Gilbert of Poitiers’s biblical commentaries.
He kept the Glossa’s patristic and Carolingian base, took
over Gilbert’s organization scheme and hermeneutic
principles, and consistently worked out doctrinal posi-
tions and current theological issues in connection with
the scriptural text.
Even more central to the history of medieval theol-
ogy and philosophy is the Lombard’s Quattuor libri
sententiarum, or the Sententiae. Sentence collections
proliferated in the 12th century, as theologians strove
to systematize and professionalize their fi eld. Peter
Lombard’s Sententiae (1155–57) became an instant and
enduring success throughout Europe (legislated into
the theological curriculum of the University of Paris
in 1215) and remained without serious competition
until replaced by the Summa of Thomas Aquinas in the
16th century. It was second only to the Bible in impor-
tance in theological training; hundreds of theologians
wrote commentaries on the Sententiae. The reasons
for its success have recently been set forth in a effort
to restore the luster to the Lombard’s tired reputation.
Its comprehensive coverage of topics, logical order,
lack of dependence on or promotion of any elaborate
philosophical system, sensitivity to the need for clarity
and consistency in theological language, and readiness
to address controversial issues while acknowledging
contemporary consensus, all ensured the utility of the
Sententiae to generations of theologians and philoso-
phers. In addition, Peter’s christology avoided many ofPÉROTIN