Vigils Reading – St Peter of Tarentaise

SAINT PETER II,

ARCHBISHOP OF TARENTAISE

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints1

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St Peter of Tarentaise was born near Vienne in the French province of the

Dauphine. He early displayed a remarkable memory, coupled with great

inclination for religious studies, and at the age of twenty he entered the abbey

of Bonnevaux. After a time, his father and the other two sons followed Peter to

Bonnevaux, while his mother, with the only daughter, entered a neighboring

nunnery.

He was not quite thirty when he was chosen superior of a new house built

at Tamie, in the desert mountains of Tarentaise. It over looked the pass which

was then the chief route from Geneva to Savoy, and the monks were able to be

of great use to travellers. There, with the help of Amadeus III, Count of Savoy,

who held him in high esteem, he founded a hospice for the sick and for

strangers, in which he was wont to wait upon his guests with his own hands.

In 1142 came his election to the archbishopric of Tarentaise, and Peter

was compelled by St Bernard and the general chapter of his order, though much

against the grain, to accept the office. He found the diocese in a deplorable state,

due mainly to the mismanagement of his predecessor, an unworthy man who

had eventually to be deposed. In place of the cathedral clergy whom he found

lax and careless; St Peter substituted canons regular of St Augustine. He

undertook the constant visitation of his diocese; recovered property which had

been alienated; appointed good priests to various parishes; made excellent

foundations for the education of the young and relief of the poor; and

everywhere provided for the due celebration of the services of the Church..11

In 1155, after he had administered the diocese for thirteen years, Peter

suddenly disappeared. Actually, he had made his way to a remote Cistercian

abbey in Switzerland, where, he was accepted as a lay-brother. Not until a year

later was he discovered. His identity having been revealed to his new superiors,

Peter was obliged to leave and return to his see, where he was greeted with great

joy. He took up his duties more zealously than ever. He rebuilt the hospice of

the Little St Bernard and founded other similar refuges for travellers in the

Alps…

It was not granted to the saint to die among his mountain flock. His

reputation as a peacemaker led Alexander III to send him in 1174 to try effect a

reconciliation between King Louis VII of France and Henry II of England. St

Peter, though he was old, set out at once, preaching everywhere on his way. As

he approached Chaumont in the Vexin, where the French court was being held,

he was met by King Louis and by Prince Henry, the rebellious heir to the English

throne. The latter, alighting from his horse to receive the archbishop’s blessing,

asked for the saint’s old cloak, which he reverently kissed. Both at Chaumont

and at Gisors where he interviewed the English king, St Peter was treated with

utmost honor, but the reconciliation for which he labored did not take place

until after his death. As he was returning to his diocese he was taken ill on the

road near Besancon, and died as he was being carried into the abbey of

Bellevaux. This St Peter was canonized in 1191.