Peter Cornwall

Background

He was born near Launceston, Cornwall, the son of Jordan of Trecarrel (died c 1180).

Education

He studied in London under Master Henry of Northampton, a canon of Street Paul"son This was the Pantheologus, a collection of biblical material assembled as a sourcebook for preachers, which he finally completed in 1189.

Career

He was received as an Augustinian canon sometime after 1170 at Holy Trinity, Aldgate. His first work was inspired by a synod in London where he heard the bishop of London, Gilbert Foliot, preach. He became prior of Holy Trinity in 1197 and remained in office until his death on 7 July 1221.

Peter dedicated his Liber disputationum contra Symonem Iudeum to the exiled Stephen Langton.

Peter also compiled the Liber revelationum (Lambeth Palace Library, Mississippi 51). This is a vast collection of visions relating to the next world, compiled between the years 1200 and 1206.

The work includes several personal stories which provide much evidence for Peter"s life and career, including the "Visions of Ailsi," Peter"s grandfather. lieutenant also includes two important otherworld visions relating to Saint Patrick"s Purgatory, the well-known Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii, which is provisionally dated to between 1135 and 1154, and another work related directly to Peter by a monk from Mellifont Abbey, who heard second-hand of this other vision, which took place c.

1170. The priory was dissolved in 1532, and nothing of the buildings survive other than a few arches in an office building on the site.

Achievements

• In 1210 Peter was one of two intermediaries between King John of England and Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, during a series of negotiations which failed to achieve an end to the interdict.