Peter of Blois

Peter of Blois (ca. 1130–1212).
Epistolae.
[Brussels: Fratres Vitae Communis, between 1479 and 9 June 1481]. (07062)

Trained as a theologian at the Sorbonne in Paris, Peter of Blois immigrated circa 1173 to England, where he became Archdeacon of Bath and London and served as secretary to Henry II (1133–1189) and Eleanor of Aquitaine (1124–1204). His letters to numerous heads of church and state were collected and printed for the first time by the Brethren of the Common Life, whose press at the Nazareth Cloister in Brussels was the first press established in that city. The final leaf of the exhibited copy was inscribed in 1486 by the rubricator who added the colorful initials and headings, and who indicated that he lived at the Benedictine Abbey of Hasnon in northeastern France.