Peter of Blois  Peter of Blois (; ) was a French cleric, theologian, poet and diplomat. He is particularly noted for his corpus of Latin letters. Peter of Blois was born about 1130. Earlier opinion tended to place the date later in the 1130s, but an earlier date is now considered more likely. His family were minor nobility of Breton origin. After an early visit to Paris, Peter received his literary education at the school attached to Tours Cathedral in the early 1140s probably accompanied and mentored by an older namesake and relative, Pierre de Blois. He studied under Bernard Silvestris, who, he later recalled, urged him to “take up in truth not fables, but history” and made him memorise the letters of Hildebert, a former Archbishop of Tours. It has been thought Peter also studied under the English philosopher and theologian John of Salisbury, but this is now generally discounted. Peter then studied Roman law at the University of Bologna, a centre for legal studies. Here he was tutored by Baldwin of Forde, a future Archbishop of Canterbury, and both studied under Umberto Crivelli, the future Pope Pope Urban III. Peter was much more strongly attracted to the rhetorical and literary aspects of the subject than to jurisprudence: as he wrote later, “sporting with its glorious verbal trappings and charming, fanciful oratorical urbanity, attracted me powerfully and intoxicated my mind.” Around 1155 Peter went to study theology in Paris, remaining there for about 11 years. Few details of his studies are extant. It appears that he supported himself during his advance studies by taking students of his own, including two sons of Josceline de Bohon, a long-serving Bishop of Salisbury. It was probably during his student years that he composed a number of Latin sequences after the manner of the Goliards, some of which were preserved in the "Carmina Burana" collection. He also wrote "Vacillantis trutine libramine". In 1166 the regent of Sicily, Margaret of Navarre, a relative of the Counts of Perche, wrote to her relatives in France, particularly Rotrou, the Archbishop of Rouen, to ask for help during the minority of her son, William II. Peter of Blois and his brother Guillaume arrived in Sicily in September of that year, as part of a French party of 37 that included Stephen du Perche and Walter of the Mill.