Peter of Blois, known in Latin as Petrus Blesensis, was born in Blois in central France about 1130. He died in 1211 or 1212. He studied at the leading universities in Tours, Paris, and Bologna. He then served as tutor to William II in the Sicilian court from 1167 to 1169. He subsequently was associated with the English court of Henry II. He became chancellor to the Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury, archdeacon of Bath, and served various other high royal and ecclesiastic officials. Peter of Blois was a stylish, learned writer who produced an influential collection of letters. Which surviving 12th-century Latin poems such as the Arundel Lyrics are properly ascribed to him is a matter of scholarly controversy.
Sailing to old Pavia better serves understanding than does sailing to Byzantium. Bodily form intrinsically relates to humans’ holy hope for eternity. … Read the post sailing to old Pavia as Archpoet: an eternal truth about humanity
In 12th-century Latin poetry, Peter of Blois associated subjective pleasure-seeking with misery and pointed to ancient Greek concern for human nature. … Read the post Peter of Blois on human nature & misery from pleasures
Despite apparent thematic disparities, the Arundel Lyrics is a collection artfully constructed like its individual poems. … Read the post Arundel Lyrics connect eros, God, invective & praise
The Arundel Lyrics, exquisite erotic poetry written in Latin in twelfth-century England, thoroughly explore the viaticum’s polarities of lovesickness … Read the post men suffering lovesickness: viaticum in medieval Latin poetry
Medieval thinkers’ struggle to reconcile men soldiering for love with gender equality generated word separate from flesh and totalizing myth. … Read the post soldiering for love generated totalizing myth of gender equality