1160 he went to study jurisprudence at Bologna, and seems to have lectured there on civil law (Ep. 8). From Bologna in 1161 he proceeded to Rome to pay his court to Pope Alexander III; on his way he was taken prisoner and ill-treated by the followers of the antipope Victor IV, but escaped by being let down the wall in a basket without having ‘bowed his knee to Baal’ (Ep. 48). On his return to France he began to study theology at Paris, where he knew Odo de Suilly, the future bishop of Paris, and supported himself by teaching (cf. Epp. 9, 26, 51, 101, 126).
In 1167 Peter went to Sicily with a number of other French scholars in the train of Stephen du Perche, who had been elected archbishop of Palermo and invited to assist in the government during the minority of William II. He was appointed tutor to the young king in succession to the Englishman Walter, afterwards archbishop of Palermo [q. v.], and held this position for a year. He was also sigillarius or keeper of the royal seal, and, according to his own statement, the rule of the kingdom depended on him after the queen and Stephen du Perche. His position excited much rivalry, and his enemies endeavoured to remove him from court by having him nominated, first to the archbishopric of Naples, and afterwards, on two occasions, to the see of Rossano in Calabria; but Peter refused all their offers (Epp. 72, 131; the manuscripts read ‘Roffen,’ but cf. Hist. Litt. xv. 371). Peter made many friends in Sicily, including the famous historians Romuald of Salerno and Hugo Falcandus, and the Englishmen Walter and Richard Palmer (d. 1195) [q. v.]; to one of the latter he appealed against the intended injustice to the see of Girgenti. But the character both of the country and its people was distasteful to him, and he always refers to his Sicilian career with abhorrence, and refused an invitation from Richard of Syracuse to return (Epp. 10, 46, 66, 90, 93, 116). At the time of the fall of Stephen du Perche in 1169, Peter was lying ill, and was entrusted to the care of Romuald of Salerno. On his recovery he begged the king's leave to depart. William reluctantly granted him permission, and, as Peter did not like the idea of riding through Sicily and Calabria, obtained him a passage on a Genoese vessel. At Genoa he was well received by the magnates who had known him in Sicily (Ep. 90). Thence he proceeded to the papal court, and from there travelled as far as Bologna in the company of the papal legates who were going to England (Ep. 22; cf. Mat. for History of T. Becket, vii. 314–16, but though the letter dates from 1170 Peter may, perhaps, have been with Gratian and Vivian in 1169).
Peter probably returned to France some time in 1170 and resumed teaching at Paris. He was, however, in great straits for money, but was relieved by the timely assistance of Reginald FitzJocelin [q. v.], then archdeacon of Salisbury and afterwards bishop of Bath, whose friendship he had perhaps made at Paris five years before (Epp. 24, 163). Epistle 230, in which he applies for a prebend at Salisbury, may belong to this time, and Peter may have now received the prebend which he afterwards held in that church. His friendship for Reginald brought him into ill-repute with the supporters of Thomas of Canterbury, but Peter warmly defended his friend from the charges which were brought against him. A little later he received an invitation from William, archbishop of Sens, offering him a post in his court and a prebend at Chartres; Peter alleges that he was ousted from this post by one Master Gerard—probably Gerard La Pucelle—and that in his hope for it he had refused many advantageous offers. In replying about the same time to a similar offer from Pierre Minet, bishop of Périgord, he says that he had been waiting to see if a certain promise would prove illusory (ib. 24, 34, 72, 128). Not long afterwards he entered the service of Rotrou, archbishop of Rouen (ib. 33, 67), as secretary. In 1173 he was at Paris with Rotrou and Arnulf of Lisieux on a mission for Henry II (ib. 71, 153); he had perhaps already entered the service of the king, who, he says, first introduced him to England (ib. 127, 149). On 24 June 1174 Reginald FitzJocelin was consecrated bishop of Bath, and soon afterwards, perhaps in 1175, made Peter his archdeacon. When Richard (d. 1184) [q. v.] became archbishop of Canterbury, Peter, apparently without terminating entirely his connection with the royal court, became attached to him as cancellarius or secretary (ib. 5, 6, 38; see Ancient Charters, p. 72). In 1177 Richard sent Peter and Gerard la Pucelle as his proctors to the Roman court in the matter of his dispute with the abbey of St. Augusine's, Canterbury. Peter and Gerard were at the Roman court on 3 April 1178. Their mission was unsuccessful; but Peter remained at Rome till July in the vain endeavour to arrange the affair favourably (Chron. St. Augustine, 421–2, Rolls Ser.; Thorn, ap. Scriptores Decem, 1821–3; cf. Epp. 68, 158). In 1176 John of Salisbury became bishop of Chartres, and Peter, who was now a canon of that church, addressed several letters to him during the next few years. In one, Peter
