If Alexander thought that the hermit abbot of Fonte Avellana would submit to this method of suppression he flattered his soul in vain. Damiani, after a reasonable delay, appealed to his friend Hildebrand. The book was like a part of himself, and he had no desire to have it treated with neglect. One cannot here follow the windings of the story further than to say that Damiani got his book again, and now we have it too.
I am surprised at the blindness which prevents some writers from seeing in this Peter de Honestis a most noble and consistent character. Morheim only pays him a merited compliment when he says that his “genius, candor, integrity, and writings of various kinds, entitle him to rank among the first men of the age, although he was not free from the faults of the times.” But how could one easily avoid the extreme of severity who was confronted by the grossest sins that ever carried a hissing sibilant in front of their names! Flagellation was a natural reaction from those fleshly lusts that warred against the soul.
Somehow Hildebrand took a great fancy to this genuine reformer. His own great schemes were ripening, and Damiani was just the man to be made of value in the office of cardinal. In 1057, then, the abbot had been created cardinal-bishop of Ostia by Pope Nicholas II., and in the year following deacon of the holy college. At first he strenuously resisted the honor, but was forced to assume it by the Pope’s command. In 1059 he had acted as papal legate to the semi-independent Ambrosian Church of Milan. Here he obtained pledges from them that they would conduct their affairs with purity and agree to receive the authority of the Roman pontiff.
He did not remain among the cardinals very long. His convent allured him, and the display requisite to his proper duties was both irksome and repugnant to him. Therefore he went home again, ardently devoted to Hildebrand, but devoid of all ambition, and ready to denounce the Pope or anybody else when it appeared that the rights of the Church were infringed.
In 1062 Alexander II. found use for him as legate to France, and he influenced Cluny in favor of Alexander II. In 1068-69 we find him again a legate in Germany, impressing on young Henry IV. the importance of submission to Rome. This, too, he effected; and in 1072—the last year of his life—he appears in the same capacity at the age of sixty six, busy with the reform of the Church in his native Ravenna.