No longer a young man, Peter Lombard left Bologna for France in perhaps 1134, armed with a recommendation from the bishop of Lucca. He went first to Rheims where Alberic taught until 1136 and also probably Lotulph, who, like the Lombard, had come from Novara. Soon, perhaps even in the same year, Peter moved to St Victor in Paris where he was recommended by Bernard of Clairvaux. He did not become a canon there but did become a master in the cathedral school of Notre Dame. By staying first at St Victor he must have come into contact with Hugh; perhaps too he came into contact with Abelard and he surely would have been well informed of Abelard's last struggles.

In Paris Peter Lombard undertook an expansion of the gloss upon the Psalms made by Anselm of Laon. Our source of information is Herbert of Bosham who later and at the instigation of Thomas Becket corrected and re-edited the Lombard's commentary. It fills over a thousand columns in the Patrologia latina and Herbert also tells us that it was not designed for reading in the schools. The commentary was finished before 1142 and perhaps between 1135 and 1137. Between 1139 and 1141 he also wrote a commentary upon the Epistles of Paul which, in its strictly exegetical parts, refashioned the interlinear notes and marginal texts of the Laon glosses into a continuous work. The co mmentary was filled with biblical and patristic illustrations and references and the occasional disagreement was registered with the teachings of Gilbert, later bishop of Poitiers.