St. Peter Damiani, who thus introduces himself to our notice, was one of the remarkable men of the epoch. Born about the year 988 at Ravenna, of a noble but decayed family, and the last of a numerous progeny, he owed his life to a woman of the very class to the extirpation of which he devoted all the energies of his prime. His mother, worn out in the struggle with poverty, regarded his birth with aversion, refused to suckle the infant saint, and neglected him until his forlorn and emaciated condition awoke the compassion of a female retainer, the wife of a priest, who remonstrated with the unfeeling parent until she succeeded in arousing the sense of duty and restored to existence the little sufferer, who was destined to bring unnumbered woes to all who were of her condition.[456] His early years are said to have been passed as a swineherd, till the opportunity for instruction offered itself, which he eagerly embraced. Retiring at length from the world, he joined the disciples of St. Romuald, who practised the strictest monastic life, either as monks or hermits, at Avellana, near Agubio. Immuring himself there in the desert, his austerities soon gained for him the reputation of preëminent sanctity, and led to his election as prior of the brotherhood. Gifted by nature with an intellect of unusual strength, informed with all the learning of the day, his stern asceticism, his dauntless spirit, and the uncompromising force of his zeal brought him into notice and marked him as a fitting instrument in the cause of reform. Occasionally, at the call of his superiors, he left his beloved retreat to do battle with the hosts of evil, returning with renewed zest to the charms of solitude, until, in 1057, Stephen IX. forced him to accept the cardinalate and bishopric of Ostia—the highest dignity in the Roman court. The duties of his episcopate, however, conflicted with his monastic fervor, and after a few years he rendered up the pastoral ring and staff and again returned to Avellana, where he died in 1072, full of years and honors. His position and authority can best be estimated from the terms employed by Alexander II., who, when sending him on an important mission to France, described him as next in influence to himself in the Roman church, and the chief support of the Holy See.[457]