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Peter the Deacon (2)

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Peter the Deacon (1)

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a learned Benedictine of Monte-Cassino, of a Roman patrician family, was born about the close of the 11th century, in the reign of Alexius I Comnenus. In the Jus Graeco-Romanum of Leunclavius (lib. 6:395-397) are given Interrogationes quas solvit reverendissimus Chartularius, Dominus Petrus. idemque Diaconus Majoris Ecclesiae (sc. of St. Sophia at Constantinople), A.M. 6600=A.D. 1092. We learn from this title when the author lived, and that he held the offices described. He seems to have been admitted into the Benedictine Order at the very early age of fifteen. In a controversy of his convent with pope Innocent II, he defended the monastic interests to great advantage before the emperor Lothaire in 1138, while he was in South Italy. So well pleased was the emperor with Peter that he was made chartularius and chaplain of the Roman realm. Later he was intrusted by pope Alexander with the management of the convent of Monte-Cassino, where he died after the middle of the 12th century. The following of his writings are instructive for the contemporaneous history of the Church, De vita et obitu Justorum Coenobii Casinensis: — Lib. illustrium virorum Casinensis Archisterii: — Lib. de locis sanctis: — and De Novissinis temporibus. There are, or were, extant in MS. in the king's library at Paris, Petrus Diaconus et Philosophus de Cyclo et Indictione, and Petri Diaconi et Philosophi Tractatus de Sole, Luna, et Sideribus (Codd. CMXXIX, No. 7, and MMMLXXXV), but whether this Petrus Diaconus is the canonist is not clear.-Smith, Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Biog. and Mythol. 3:223; Potthast, Bibl. Med. AEvi, page 490; Fabricius, Bib. Graeca, 11:334 sq.; Cave, Hist. Litt. 2:161.