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| Toynbee "Pietro Mangiadore" |
Petrus Comestor (i.e. 'Peter the Eater', so called because he was
an insatiable devourer of books), priest, and afterwards dean, of
the cathedral of Troyes in France, where he was born in the first
half of cent. xii; he became canon of St. Victor in in 1164, and
chancellor of the University of Paris, and died at St. Victor in
1179, leaving all his possessions to the poor. His chief work was
the Historia scholastica, which professed to be a history
of the Church from the beginning of the world down to the times of
the apostles; it consists mainly of a compilation of the
historical portions of the Bible, accompanied by a commentary and
parallels from profane history; it was the great authority on the
subject in the Middle Ages, and was translated into several
languages, the best known translation being the French version,
with considerable amplifications, made in 1295 under the title of
Les Livres histosiaux et escolastres de la Bible, by
Guiart des Moulins, dean of Aire in Artois (d. c. 1320).
D. places Petrus Comestor, with Hugh of St. Victor and Petrus
Hispanus, among the doctors of the Church (Spiriti
sapienti) in the Heaven of the Sun, where they are named by
Bonaventura,
[Par. xii. 134].
[Sole, Cielo del.]
The following epitaph is said to have been inscribed on his tomb:
Petrus eram, quam petra tegit, dictusque Comestor,
Nunc comedor. Vivus docui, nec cesso docere
Mortuus; ut dicat, qui me videt incineratum:
Quod sumus iste fuit, erimus quandoque quod hic est.
[Peter I was, beneath a stone see now entombed I lie, Devourer was
I called in life, now here devoured am I:
In life I taught, and now in death this lesson learn from me:
What ye are now that once was I, what I am ye shall be.]
©Oxford University Press 1968. From A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante by Paget Toynbee
(1968) by permission of Oxford University Press