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St. Peter Damian

He left a teaching career to live as a hermit, then wrote a treatise naming the vices of the clergy of his day and made enemies with it. Sent to Milan as the pope’s legate, he faced down a rioting crowd in the cathedral and got both sides to accept his ruling.

Feast February 21Died at about 65Ravenna, and the hermitage of Fonte Avellana

Born 1007 · Died 1072 · Canonized

Born at Ravenna in 1007, died at Faenza in 1072. The birth year has three witnesses, and one of them can be checked by arithmetic: Benedict XVI, writing to the Camaldolese Order on 20 February 2007, calls that year “The 1,000th anniversary of his birth”, and a thousand years back from 2007 is 1007. Where the sources part is the day he died. The Catholic Encyclopedia heads its article “d. at Faenza, 21 Feb., 1072”, and tells the death as coming “On the night preceding the feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Antioch” — a feast the calendar kept here puts on 22 February. Benedict XVI, in his General Audience of 9 September 2009, says he died “in the night between 22 and 23 February 1072”, and the Italian edition of the same audience says it the same way: “muore nella notte tra il 22 e il 23 febbraio del 1072”. That is one day apart, from two sources that agree about everything else in the sentence, so this record prints the years and not the day. His feast is 21 February and comes from the calendar rather than from any of them. No age at death is recorded here, because only the year of his birth is known.

Peter Damian was born at Ravenna, in northern Italy, in 1007, which every source here agrees on. The two that describe his childhood agree on very little else. He was orphaned early. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes a family that did not want him and a brother who underfed him and set him to mind pigs. Pope Benedict XVI, speaking about him in 2009, describes a sister called Roselinda who tried to be a mother to him and an elder brother called Damian who adopted him as a son. Neither account leaves room for the other, and this record reports both rather than choosing.

What they do agree on is where his name came from. A brother of his was called Damian, and Peter took that name onto his own — Peter of Damian, Pier Damiani in Italian.

He was schooled at Faenza and Parma and was teaching by the age of twenty-five. Around 1034 he gave that up for the hermitage of Fonte Avellana, already known for its hard life. He became its prior and remained prior until he died. He wrote without stopping — letters, sermons, poems, prayers — and kept returning to the cross. “Those who do not love the Cross of Christ do not love Christ”, he said.

He wrote about what was wrong with the Church of his time too, in a treatise on the vices of the clergy that made him enemies. In 1057 he was made Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia, having held out until he was threatened with excommunication. He asked to be let go and was refused. He was sent to Milan, Germany and France to settle quarrels; at Milan he stood up in the cathedral in front of a rioting crowd and argued them down.

Early in 1072 he went back to Ravenna on one last errand. On the way home he fell ill at Faenza, and died there.

What they carried

He was orphaned young, and the two accounts of his childhood do not overlap at all: one is of neglect and hard work, the other of a sister and a brother who took him in. He was made a cardinal against his will, asked more than once to be released from it, and was refused.

State of life

monk · hermit · bishop · cardinal · Doctor of the Church

Themes

reform · prayer · writing · the cross · speaking truth to power

Benedict XVI, General Audience on Saint Peter Damian (2009)

  • FOUR DOCUMENTS CARRY THIS LIFE AND THEY ARE ALL TIER 1. The Catholic Encyclopedia article “St. Peter Damian”, written by Leslie Toke and published in 1911, is a chronology: it dates the treatises, the synods, the legations and the deaths of five popes around him. Benedict XVI’s General Audience of 9 September 2009 is a portrait: it quotes Peter Damian’s own letters and sermons by number and is interested in what he thought rather than in what year he did it. Benedict XVI’s letter to the Camaldolese Order of 20 February 2007, written for the thousandth anniversary of his birth, is shorter and is the one that dates the birth by its own occasion. And Paul VI’s address of 21 February 1973, to the committee that ran the ninth-centenary year of his death, is four paragraphs long and carries one word the others do not — see the ref on the doctorate. Both papal documents are held in English and Italian, except the 1973 address, which exists in Italian only, and each pair was read against itself. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11764a.htm
  • WHAT THE TWO SOURCES AGREE ON FIRST, BECAUSE THE AGREEMENT IS WHAT MAKES THE DISAGREEMENT LEGIBLE. He was born at Ravenna in 1007, to a family that was noble and had no money. The encyclopedia: born at Ravenna “five years after the death of the Emperor Otto III,” 1007, and “his parents were noble, but poor”. Benedict XVI: “He was born in Ravenna in 1007, into a noble family but in straitened circumstances.” Two documents, the same city, the same year, the same condition of the household. THEN THEY DESCRIBE THE YEARS IMMEDIATELY AFTER AND DO NOT OVERLAP ANYWHERE. This is not a translation problem and it is not a difference of a year in a date. It is two Tier 1 documents recording, of the same childhood, abuse in one and rescue in the other, with no fact common to both accounts except that he was orphaned and that a brother called Damian took him in. THE ENCYCLOPEDIA. “He was the youngest of a large family”. Then: “At his birth an elder brother protested against this new charge on the resources of the family with such effect that his mother refused to suckle him and the babe nearly died.” Then: “A family retainer, however, fed the starving child and by example and reproaches recalled his mother to her duty.” Then, orphaned, “he was at first adopted by an elder brother, who ill-treated and under-fed him while employing him as a swineherd”, until “another brother, who was archpriest at Ravenna, had pity on him and took him away to be educated”. BENEDICT XVI. “He was left an orphan and his childhood was not exempt from hardships and suffering, although his sister Roselinda tried to be a mother to him and his elder brother, Damian, adopted him as his son.” The Italian edition says the same and is slightly more exact about the orphaning: “Rimasto orfano di ambedue i genitori” — orphaned of both parents. NEITHER IS CHOSEN HERE AND NEITHER IS SOFTENED. The encyclopedia has no sister at all; the audience has no mother refusing to feed him, no retainer, no pigs, and no second brother. The summary reports both and picks neither.
  • BOTH SOURCES EXPLAIN HIS NAME AND THEY EXPLAIN IT THE SAME WAY, WHICH IS THE ONLY PLACE THE TWO ACCOUNTS OF HIS CHILDHOOD TOUCH. The encyclopedia: “This brother was called Damian and it was generally accepted that St. Peter added this name to his own in grateful recognition of his brother’s kindness.” Benedict XVI: “For this very reason he was to be called Piero di Damiano, Pier Damiani”. So Damian is his brother’s name carried as his own, and Peter of Damian is what the double name means. The encyclopedia also opens by noting a second form: “(Or Damiani).” https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11764a.htm
  • THE DEATH: ONE PLACE, ONE YEAR, TWO DAYS. Both sources put him at Faenza in 1072, on the way home from a last errand to Ravenna, dying in a monastery he had stopped at because he fell ill. They name the monastery almost identically — the encyclopedia has “the monastery of Santa Maria degl’Angeli, now Santa Maria Vecchia”, and Benedict XVI “the Benedictine Monastery of Santa Maria Vecchia Fuori Porta in Faenza”. Then they part. The encyclopedia’s heading reads “d. at Faenza, 21 Feb., 1072”, and its account has him dying “On the night preceding the feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Antioch”, after ordering that feast’s office to be recited — and the calendar kept here puts the Chair of St Peter on 22 February, which makes the encyclopedia consistent with itself. Benedict XVI says he died “in the night between 22 and 23 February 1072”, and the Italian edition agrees: “muore nella notte tra il 22 e il 23 febbraio del 1072”. That is a difference of one day, and nothing held resolves it, so this record carries the year and leaves the day to the two documents.
  • The feast is 21 February. The universal calendar held here, published by the Liturgy Office of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, prints “St Peter Damian, Bishop, Doctor of the Church” against 21 in February and prints no rank word under it, where it prints “memorial” under Cyril and Methodius and under Polycarp. The page says what that silence means in its own legend: “If no rank is given the celebration is an Optional Memorial.” The United States bishops’ calendar for 2026 corroborates the day and the title from a second conference, printing “[Saint Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church]” against 21 February. TWO OF THE PAPAL DOCUMENTS HELD HERE ARE THEMSELVES FEAST-DAY DOCUMENTS. They are not calendars and are not the source of this date, but they are worth seeing: Paul VI’s address is datelined “Mercoledì, 21 febbraio 1973”, the feast day itself, and 21 February 1973 was indeed a Wednesday; Benedict XVI’s letter is headed “FOR THE FEAST OF SAINT PETER DAMIAN” and opens “Today’s Feast of St Peter Damian”. https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Universal/FebUC.shtml
  • HE IS A DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH, AND THERE ARE NOW TWO WITNESSES TO IT RATHER THAN ONE. THE ACT is stated in a single clause of the Catholic Encyclopedia: “In 1823 Leo XII extended his feast (23 Feb.) to the whole Church and pronounced him a Doctor of the Church.” A pope and a year, no day, no month, no instrument named. A POPE USING THE TITLE OF HIM is the second, and it arrived after this record was first written. Paul VI, receiving the committee for the ninth-centenary year of his death on 21 February 1973 — his feast day — praised the work of “studiosi e specialisti di tutto il mondo” who had come to “approfondire la vita e la dottrina del Dottore della Chiesa”: to go deeper into the life and the teaching of the Doctor of the Church. That is not a declaring act and it does not amend one. It is a reigning pope calling him by the title as something already known, which is the ordinary way a liturgical title is attested outside a calendar. THE CALENDAR IS STILL WHERE A READER CAN CHECK IT MOST EASILY, because a doctorate is a liturgical title and is printed on the day: the universal calendar held here reads “St Peter Damian, Bishop, Doctor of the Church”, and the United States bishops’ calendar for 2026 reads “Saint Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church”. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11764a.htm https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/it/speeches/1973/february/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19730221_san-pier-damiani.html
  • HE WAS NEVER FORMALLY CANONIZED, AND HIS OWN SOURCE SAYS SO PLAINLY: “No formal canonization ever took place, but his cultus has existed since his death at Faenza, at Fonte-Avellana, at Monte Cassino, and at Cluny.” Four places, named, from the year he died. That is what the corpus means by an ancient cultus: he is a saint because he was venerated as one from the beginning and the Church has kept the day, not because a process was run. The encyclopedia also records that his body was moved six times and now lies in a chapel in the cathedral of Faenza. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11764a.htm
  • NO PATRONAGE IS RECORDED FOR HIM, AND THE CHECK WAS RUN AGAIN WHEN TWO MORE PAPAL DOCUMENTS ARRIVED. SCOPE, when this was last run on 1 September 2026: every document held for this record was searched for “patron” and for its Italian forms, in every edition held, and the Holy See’s own search was run over vatican.va in ASCII. The word does not occur once in any held document — not in the encyclopedia article, not in either edition of the 2009 audience, not in either edition of the 2007 letter to the Camaldolese, and not in Paul VI’s address of 1973. The searches for his name return documents and none of them calls him anyone’s patron, and every search for a title returned nothing at all. There is no declaring act and no reference work here describing a devotion. A pope does use one title of him — Doctor of the Church — but that is a liturgical title and not a patronage, and it is recorded in its own place.
  • THE TREATISE THE SUMMARY MENTIONS AND DOES NOT DESCRIBE. About 1051 he wrote what the encyclopedia calls “his terrible treatise on the vices of the clergy” — the Liber Gomorrhianus, which he dedicated to the pope. What happened next is the part worth having: “It caused a great stir and aroused not a little enmity against its author. Even the pope, who had at first praised the work, was persuaded that it was exaggerated and his coldness drew from Damian a vigorous letter of protest.” The book is about sexual sin among priests. This record names it, says it made him enemies, and does not go into what is in it. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11764a.htm
  • MILAN IS THE SCENE THIS RECORD LEANS ON HARDEST, AND THE ENCYCLOPEDIA TELLS IT AS A ROOM HE WALKED INTO. Sent as legate about the end of 1059, he found a church where “benefices were openly bought and sold”, and a party raising “the cry that Rome had no authority over Milan”. Then: “Boldly confronting the rioters in the cathedral, he proved to them the authority of the Holy See with such effect that all parties submitted to his decision.” He took an oath from the archbishop and all his clergy that no preferment would be paid for again, imposed a penance, and restored to their benefices everyone who undertook to live continently. THE SAME ARTICLE IS NOT UNIFORMLY ADMIRING AND THIS RECORD DOES NOT PRETEND OTHERWISE. Of Florence in 1067: “His efforts, however, were not successful, largely because he misjudged the case and threw the weight of his authority on the side of the bishop.” Of France in 1063: he “brought upon himself a sharp reproof from Alexander and Hildebrand for twice imprudently appealing to the royal power”. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11764a.htm
  • WHAT BENEDICT XVI THINKS HE WAS FOR, WHICH IS WHY THE SUMMARY ENDS ITS THIRD PARAGRAPH ON THE CROSS. The hermitage at Fonte Avellana was dedicated to the Holy Cross, and the audience makes that the centre of the man: “Those who do not love the Cross of Christ do not love Christ”, and his own description of himself as “Petrus crucis Christi servorum famulus”, which the audience renders “Peter, servant of the servants of the Cross of Christ”. On the writing: he “distinguished himself in the widest range of literary forms: from letters to sermons, from hagiographies to prayers, from poems to epigrams”, and Benedict XVI quotes a scholar calling him “one of the most accomplished Latinists of his time, one of the greatest writers of medieval Latin”. On what the hermit’s cell was — he described it as the “parlour in which God converses with men”. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20090909.html
  • HOW A CANDIDATE REACHES THIS RECORD, AND IT IS USUALLY ALONGSIDE SOMEBODY ELSE. Peter returns the apostle as well; Damian returns Damien of Molokai, who carries Damian as one of his own forms; Pier returns Pier Giorgio Frassati; Pedro and Pierre return the apostle and Frassati too. The name stage returns every claimant and the candidate chooses, the way it does for the four Teresas and the three who answer to Joseph, so a shared name costs nothing and hiding one would cost a match. NO BARE FIRST NAME ENTERS THE CORPUS WITH HIM — every one of them was already answered by somebody. What is new is the double name: before this record, Peter Damian and Pier Damiani found nothing at all, and a candidate who typed the name he is actually known by got no match. That is the gap this record closes. AND THE COLLISION WITH DAMIEN OF MOLOKAI IS NOT HYPOTHETICAL: the English edition of Benedict XVI’s 2007 letter about him spells his name “Peter Damien” twice, the Molokai spelling, where the Italian edition of the same letter never does. A candidate who met him in that document and typed what it printed still reaches him here.