The Materia super libros Sententiarum Attributed to Peter Comestor: Study of the Text and Critical Edition

One of the most significant aspects of twelfth-century theological development is the success of Peter Lombard’s Sententiarum libri quatuor. Since 1160 this text became the subject of fierce debates but also of an increasing use in the teaching activity of the Parisian masters. Peter Comestor, one of Peter Lombard’s pupils and his successor as master, composed an introitus to the Sentences whose contents were immediately seen as the proper perspective to understand Lombard’s work. The essay provides a study of Comestor’s introitus whit a critical edition of the text. A special attention is also devoted to the literary and doctrinal influence of the text, whit the edition of two texts connected with it, namely the prologue of ps.-Peter of Poitier’s Glossae and the prologue to Hugh of Saint-Cher’s commentary on the Sentences.