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  • The Clerical Dilemma: Peter of Blois and Literate Culture in the Twelfth Century
  • Ryan Freeburn
The Clerical Dilemma: Peter of Blois and Literate Culture in the Twelfth Century. By John D. Cotts. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. 2009. Pp. xiv, 322. $74.95. ISBN 978-0-813-21676-8.)

In this book, John Cotts offers a reassessment of Peter of Blois, who has been neglected and even derided by scholars as an uninspired compiler. Cotts rightly notes that despite his recent unpopularity, his letter collection was widely read for centuries after his death. The author embarks on a reassessment that hinges on interpreting Peter as a borderland figure, who "bridged gaps between symbol and system, between monastic and scholastic" (p. 15). A major theme throughout the book is anxiety, in this case the anxiety of a secular cleric who ultimately rose to the office of archdeacon, an office disdained by many of the reforming circles throughout the medieval Church (and considering some of its holders, not entirely unjustly).

In chapters 1 and 2, Cotts gives a biography of Peter, tracing his life from the schools of France and Italy to his service in episcopal and royal courts. He then introduces Peter's letter collection, which provides the evidence throughout the book for Peter's character and concerns. Looking at the letters he wrote for others and those he wrote in his own name, and comparing them to the collections of other contemporaries, Cotts provides a picture of Peter's world through a look at his "epistolary community" (p. 63). An appendix gives more details about theories regarding Peter's successive compilations. [End Page 125]

Chapter 3 takes a closer look at Peter's formation in the schools, uses of legal and scholastic language, and shifting views on the value of secular learning. Chapters 4 and 5 then get to the heart of Peter's interests, underlining his attempts to define and defend the value of the secular cleric against the criticisms of his day. Cotts details his development of a theology, however incoherent, of service in the world and, in particular, of the need for clerics to use their learning to advise kings and defend the Church. Peter's writings on the ideal bishop give examples of this service, and he reserved his greatest praise not for someone like St. Thomas Becket but rather for more cooperative bishops like Baldwin of Ford and Walter of Coutances.

Finally, chapter 6 deals with Peter's other theological writings, in which he shows a growing concern with penance and the liturgy. The author also defends Peter against some of the charges of the derivative nature of his works, acknowledging that he borrowed but that he also uniquely internalized much of the language and piety of monasticism and diverted it for the uses of clerics in the world.

Most of the chapters are organized thematically, and indeed Cotts emphasizes that he is not writing an intellectual biography (p. 16). This does lead to material being revisited in such a way that at times the chapters read more like separate essays than chapters of a book. In other respects, The Clerical Dilemma is engagingly and lucidly written. Although Cotts does not entirely free Peter from accusations of being a compiler, he does show his subject's uniqueness in his approach to his office. As he uncovers the facets of this complex and contradictory individual, Cotts reveals the haziness of the borders between the simple categories with which Peter's contemporaries and many modern scholars interpret his world. This is a work that is valuable not only in that it helps re-establish Peter's reputation, but also in the different perspective it provides on the culture of the twelfth century, especially the oft-maligned culture of the secular cleric.

Ryan Freeburn
Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy
Barry's Bay, Canada
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