Peter of Poitiers was a monk who served as secretary (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

: ''notarius'') to

Peter the Venerable Peter the Venerable ( – 25 December 1156), also known as Peter of Montboissier, was the abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Cluny. He has been honored as a saint, though he was never canonized in the Middle Ages. Since in 1862 Pope Pius IX co ...

, the ninth abbot of Cluny. Little is known of his life. Presumably he came from the French city of

Poitiers Poitiers (, , , ; Poitevin: ''Poetàe'') is a city on the River Clain in west-central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and the historical centre of Poitou. In 2017 it had a population of 88,291. Its agglomerat ...

or its vicinity.

Translating career

From 1142–3 he worked in a team recruited by Peter the Venerable which translated

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

texts into

. Their work, the '' Corpus Cluniacense'', is best remembered for including the first translation of the

Qur'an The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing. ...

into a European language. Peter the Venerable's correspondence indicates that Peter of Poitiers was employed in the team because of his command of Latin: there is no evidence that he knew Arabic. Peter of Poitiers and Peter the Venerable visited Spain in 1142. Although the

translation project A translation project is a project that deals with the activity of translating. From a technical point of view, a translation project is closely related to the project management of the translation process. But, from an intercultural point of vi ...

was not necessarily the primary reason for the abbot's presence in Spain, he took advantage of the fact that the country was an important centre for translations from the Arabic. Several translators based in Spain were recruited: a couple of them were proficient in Latin, including Robert of Ketton, the principal translator of the Qur'an. One of the translators, Peter of Toledo, who worked on the

Apology of al-Kindy ''Apology of al-Kindi'' (also spelled al-Kindy) is a medieval theological polemic making a case for Christianity and drawing attention to alleged flaws in Islam. The word "apology" is a translation of the Arabic word ', and it is used in the se ...

, is known to have required assistance from Peter of Poitiers because his knowledge of Latin was deficient.Kritzeck, James, ''Robert of Ketton's translation of the Qur'an''
/ref> Peter of Poitiers may well have polished all the texts.

References

*James Kritzeck (1964), ''Peter the Venerable and Islam'',

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial su ...

Translating career

References

See also