Event Details

Peter the Chanter’s legalism: A twelfth-century theologian’s take on Christian worship under Islamic rule and other moral dilemmas

Peter the Chanter was a theologian who taught in Paris between c. 1170 and 1197. He was part of a generation of theologians who took particular interest in practical moral questions. This paper examines a series of moral dilemmas from the Chanter’s late teaching, including questions arising for Christians living under Islamic rule: is it blasphemous to pray in an Islamic place of worship; should Christians suffer martyrdom rather than manufacture arms for their Islamic rulers? The Chanter’s approach to these questions reveal the extent to which the disciplines of law and theology were intertwined for this Parisian scholar.