council (Jaffé, 14963): and one of the very few short letters in Peter's collection (Ep. 39) is addressed to his friend E., begging his aid: 'I come straight to the point. The Roman court, as its manner is, has tied me up with a multiplicity of debt: if I can once escape from Scylla by God's grace I shall not fall back into Charybdis.'
During the earlier years of his residence in England Peter was still cherishing the hope of getting some substantial preferment in his native land. A number of his letters refer to this matter, and it will be convenient to deal with them together. It would appear that about the year 1171 Peter was drawn away from scholastic work, and hoped to find a settled position in France as a clerk of the archbishop of Sens, with a prebend, and presently the provostship, in the cathedral church of Our Lady of Chartres. Thus he writes to William (aux Blanches Mains), archbishop of Sens (1168–76), saying that he has waited patiently for the fulfilment of a promise brought him by Master Gerard: he is getting on in years, and the grey hairs are coming: many offers have been made him, but the hope of a prebend at Chartres prevents him from accepting them at present (Ep. 128). About the same time he writes to a relation of his own, Peter Minet bishop of Périgueux (1169–82), postponing the acceptance of a place in his household, on the ground of great offers from 'that lord whom you know of', for whose promised bounty he is still waiting patiently: he mentions in this letter that his father and mother are both dead (Ep. 34). Another letter (Ep. 72) shows that his hope was vain: it is written to 'G., once friend and companion'. 'The archbishop of Sens', he says, 'drew me away from the schools, to join his household in hope of a benefice at the earliest moment: you boast that you have ousted me and got another man into the post.' Peter pelts him with endless quotations from five ancient poets and from Macrobius. 'I have nothing but my patrimony,' he says in conclusion, 'and that I am distributing to my kinsfolk. In Sicily they sought to ruin me by offers of bishoprics: you take the opposite course, and after cheating me of more than one prebend, you have supplanted me also in the provostship. God spare you from the fate of the Sicilians: for I wish you no harm.'
We shall see that the provostship of Chartres, on which Peter seems to have had some kind of claim, was again to escape him to his intense chagrin: meanwhile he left France for Normandy, and betook himself once more, as we have already observed, to Rotrou, the archbishop of Rouen. Here he obtained a small prebend, which seems to have been more trouble than it was worth. Chance has preserved the record that he was forty shillings in arrear for his contribution
