Peter (Pierre) Of Poitiers
Peter (Pierre) Of Poitiers [1]
Peter (Pierre) Of Poitiers
was a modern Latin poet, who died after 1141. All that we learn of his life is that, having made a profession of the rule of St. Benedict in a monastery of Aquitaine, he was chosen by Peter the Venerable as secretary, and accompanied him first to Clugny, in 1134, then to Spain in 1141. His principal works are poems in elegiac verse, which, for verses of the 12th century, lack neither fluency nor elegance. Yet Peter the Venerable surpasses even the limit of hyperbole when he compares these verses with those of Horace and Virgil. The poems of Peter of Poitiers have been collected by the editors of the Biblioth. de Cluni. We find in the same collection, among the letters of Peter the Venerable, three letters written to this abbe by his secretary. A fourth letter from Peter of Poitiers to Peter the Venerable, published by Martene in his Amplissima Collectio (2:11), contains this curious information, that Peter of Poitiers, being in Spain, contributed some part to the translation of the Koran demanded by the abbe of Clugny. See Hist. Litt. de la France, 12:349. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 40:187.
