Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/72

 was erected over his remains. The monument and great part of the church were destroyed during the French Revolution. It is described and partly figured in ‘Archæologia,’ xviii. 188. The surviving portion forms the present church of Raudens.

Despite Peter's evil reputation, he gave proof of liberality not only at Aiguebelle, but also at Hereford, where he was a liberal benefactor of the cathedral. If he packed the chapter with his kinsfolk, he showed zeal in forcing non-resident canons to reside for half the year in the churches where they held a prebend, and in making them proceed to the grade of holy orders necessary for their charge. In 1246 his new statutes on these points duly received papal confirmation (, i. 229). He was celebrated in the church of Hereford for his long and strenuous defence of the liberties of see and chapter against ‘the citizens of Hereford and other rebels against the church.’ He bought the manor of Holme Lacy and gave it to his church, appropriated the church of Bocklington to the treasurer, gave mitres, and chalice, vestments and books, and various rents (Monasticon, vi. 1216). Peter also left lands producing two hundred bushels of corn for the clerks of the cathedral, and as much for the poor of the city. As regards the fabric of his church, he is sometimes reputed to be the builder of the beautiful north-west transept of Hereford Cathedral, though in its present form it is clearly of later date. Between this and the north end of the choir-aisle he erected a sumptuous tomb for himself, which remains the oldest monument to a bishop of Hereford, and is certainly the most striking monument in the cathedral. The delicacy of the details of the sculpture is thought to suggest Italian rather than English or French models. The bishop is represented in the effigy with a beard and moustache (, Fasti Herefordenses, pp. 176–7; Monumental Inscriptions of Hereford, p. 3). The monument is figured in Havergal's ‘Fasti Herefordenses,’ plate xix. It is not clear whether it remained a cenotaph, or whether, after the very common custom of the time, some portions of the bishop's remains were brought from Savoy to be placed within it. It was generally believed at Hereford that the body lay there and the heart in Savoy; but the reverse seems much more likely.

Bishop Peter's younger kinsfolk were amply provided for in his church at Hereford. He appointed one of his nephews, John, to the deanery of Hereford. After his uncle's death this John claimed his English lands as his next heir; but it is not clear that he succeeded in England (Calendarium Genealogicum, p. 185), though in the Tarentaise we find him sharing in the inheritance with Aimeric, his brother. Another claimant, Giles of Avenbury, drove him away from the deanery of Hereford. However, on an appeal to Rome he was reinstated (Swinfield Roll, lxxvii, clxxi, &c.) He lies buried at Hereford, in a tomb near his uncle's monument. Dean John secured for his nephews, Peter and Pontius de Cors, the church of Bromyard (ib. ccv), so that it was long before the diocese of Hereford was rid of the hated ‘Burgundians.’ Another nephew of the bishop, James of Aigueblanche, was archdeacon of Salop and canon of Hereford, and authorised by Innocent IV to hold a benefice in plurality so long as he resided at Hereford and put vicars in his other churches (, i. 229, cf. p. 232). In 1256, however, he was allowed five years' leave of absence to study (ib. i. 338). Other Hereford stalls went to other nephews, Aimon and Aimeric, of whom the latter, who became chancellor of Hereford, performed homage in 1296 to the archbishop of Tarentaise for the lordship of Briançon as head of his family (, Mémoires pour l'histoire ecclésiastique des diocèses de Genève, Tarantaise, Maurienne, &c., ed. 1871). Nor were the bishop's elder kinsfolk neglected. His brother, the clerk, named Master Aimeric, was in 1243 promised by Henry III a benefice worth sixty marks (Rôles Gascons, i. 152).

[François Mugnier's Les Savoyards en Angleterre au XIIIe siècle et Pierre d'Aigueblanche (Chambéry, 1890) is a careful book that collects nearly all that is known about Peter's career, and gives complete references to the Savoyard authorities, and a most valuable appendix of inedited documents, though it misses some of the English authorities, and does not always disentangle Peter's biography from the general history. Wurstemberger's Peter der Zweite, Graf von Savoyen (4 vols. Bern, 1856), also contains important notices of Peter, and in the fourth volume an appendix of original documents, many of which illustrate his career. The chief original sources include Matthew Paris's Hist. Major, iv. v. and vi., Annales Monastici, Flores Historiarum, Bart. Cotton., Rishanger's Hist. Angl. (all in Rolls Ser.); Expenses Roll of Bishop Swinfield, Rishanger's Chron. de Bello (both in Camden Soc.); Rymer's Fœdera, vol. i.; Berger's Registres d'Innocent IV, Bibl. de l'École française de Rome; Potthast's Regesta Pont. Roman.; Epistolæ e Reg. pont. Rom. tome iii., in Monumenta Germaniæ Hist.; Bliss's Calendar of Papal Registers (papalletters), vol. i.; Francisque Michel's Rôles Gascons, in Documents Inédits; Havergal's Fasti Herefordenses, Le Neve's Fasti