Peter Courtenay ( – 23 September 1492) was Bishop of Exeter (1478–87) and Bishop of Winchester (1487-92), and also had a successful political career during the tumultuous years of the Wars of the Roses. Origins Courtenay was the third son of Sir Philip Courtenay (d. 1463) of Powderham by Elizabeth Hungerford, daughter of Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford (d. 1449), by his first wife Catherine Peverell, daughter of Sir Thomas Peverell, MP, of Parke and Hamatethy, Cornwall. He was a grandson of Sir Philip Courtenay (d. 1406) of Powderham, a younger son of Hugh Courtenay, 10th Earl of Devon (d. 1377). Courtenay was also a grand-nephew of Richard Courtenay (d. 1415), Bishop of Norwich, and a great-grand-nephew of William Courtenay (d. 1396), Archbishop of Canterbury. He came from a family of six brothers and four sisters. Career According to Horrox, Courtenay was admitted bachelor of civil law at University of Oxford in 1457, and continued his legal studies at the University of Cologne, matriculating in the faculty of law there in November 1457. By April 1461 he was studying law at the University of Padua, where he was elected rector. Courtenay enjoyed ecclesiastical preferment from 1448 on. Among other appointments he was made Archdeacon of Exeter on 8 June 1453, prebendary at Lincoln in 1483, Archdeacon of Wiltshire in 1464, Master of St. Anthony's Hospital, St Benet Fink in the City of London in 1470, Dean of Exeter from October 1476 to March 1477, and Dean of Windsor in April 1477. On 14 June 1478 Courtenay was elected Bishop of Exeter, with papal provision taking place on 9 September 1478. He received his temporalities on 3 November, and was consecrated on 8 November at St Stephen's Chapel, Westminster. Courtenay's ecclesiastical career ran side by side with involvement in the political affairs of the day. By June 1462 he had left Padua and was back in England, where he entered the service of King Edward IV, and was sent by the King to offer the Duke of Milan the Order of the Garter. In November 1463 he acted as the King's proctor in the papal curia. However, in 1470 both he and his elder brother, Sir Philip Courtenay, had joined King Edward's brother, the Duke of Clarence, in opposition to the King. Courtenay accommodated himself to the Lancastrian regime during the readeption, serving as secretary to King Henry VI. However, in