Library › Latin: Biography › Vita Sanctorum Rodulphi et Dominici Loricati
A letter of Peter Damian to Pope Alexander II containing the lives of two of his disciples who had recently died: Rudolf, bishop of Gubbio, and Dominic, called Loricatus. Peter explains that the pope had commanded him never to send trifling letters fit only to be burnt, but always something worthy of edification and preservation. The chapters describe Rudolf’s becoming a monk, his keeping the monastic rigour while bishop, his abstinence and holy death, and then Dominic’s conversion to the hermit life, his discipleship under Peter, and the iron mail he wore next to his skin, with his extraordinary practice of self-flagellation. Peter also mentions Rudolf’s brother Peter and other monks of his hermitage.
The work is a principal source for the ascetic culture of Fonte Avellana, and Dominic Loricatus became one of the best-known examples of extreme bodily penance in the Middle Ages. Peter’s account blends admiration with personal reminiscence, including exchanges about the gift of tears. The text shows how Peter used hagiography to present the ideals of his eremitic community to the papacy. Addressing the lives to the pope also lent his disciples’ memory the authority of Rome, in line with Alexander’s request for writings worth preserving.
About this edition. The Latin text comes from Corpus Corporum, the Latin text repository of the University of Zurich (edition: Jacques-Paul Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 144, Parisiis 1853), reused with attribution for non-commercial purposes (CC BY-NC-SA). Every word has been analyzed with LatinCy, a neural language model for Latin — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from Lewis & Short’s A Latin Dictionary.