Ovidian Exile in the Letters of Peter of Blois (ca. 1135–1212)

Abstract

The letters of Peter of Blois have provided readers with an important insight into issues such as life at the royal courts of the twelfth century, the spirituality of a secular cleric, and medieval epistolographical style. They have not been studied in any close detail, however, in the context of the light they throw on Peter’s use of classical Latin text, and what references one finds in the secondary literature on Peter of Blois to his reading and appropriation of the pagan authors are generally concerned with his failure to emulate his contemporary and friend John of Salisbury. This article demonstrates that Peter’s knowledge of the classics was more considerable than traditionally assumed, and that the exile poetry of Ovid in particular provided the letter-writer with the language and authority upon which to base his own expression of isolation and detachment as a Frenchman living in England.