The Pope's Body
Contributors: David S. Peterson (Translator)
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Published: July 1, 2000
Language: eng
Number of pages: 352
ISBN-13: 9780226034379
First sentence: June 1064. Peter Damian (1007-72), one of the leading lights of the eleventh-century movement for church reform, sent Pope Alexander II (1061-73) a small treatise in the form of a letter, De brevitate (On Brevity), raising a problem that at first sight seems peculiar: "Why," he inquired, "does the head of the Apostolic See never live very long, but always dies within a short time?"