| Summary: | The eighth-century Life of St Guthlac and the twelfth-century Translatio cum miraculis were rewritten in more fashionable Latin by Peter of Blois, in his day a famous stylist who served as Latin secretary to two archbishops of Canterbury. The date and circumstances of this commission, it is argued, ought to reflect what is known of Peter’s movements and those of William de Longchamp, chancellor of England, who is the likely intermediary between his brother Henry de Longchamp, abbot of Crowland, and Peter. The commission is best dated to the late summer of 1191, though delivery may have been later, and it was the first step in Henry’s intermittent efforts to promote the veneration of saints at Crowland. Peter's fame sustained his memory at Crowland, so that the later medieval forger of the Crowland history attributed the second part of his no doubt unfinished work to him.
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