Peter Damiani

Peter Damiani is the author of Life of St Odilo. According to this, a pilgrim returning from the Holy Land is stranded on a desolate island where lives a hermit. The hermit showed the pilgrim a place on the island from which rose perpetually the groans of tortured souls in purgatory. The hermit told the pilgrim that he heard demons complaining of the progress of the prayers of the faithful, and especially of the monks of Cluny, in rescuing their victims. When he returned home, the pilgrim hastened to inform the abbot of Cluny, who forthwith set apart the 2nd of November as a day of intercession on the part of his community for all the souls in purgatory. The decree ordaining the celebration is printed in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum (Saec. VI, pt. i. p. 585). F

From Cluny the custom spread to the other houses of the Cluniac order, was soon adopted in several dioceses in France, and spread thence throughout the Western Church.

The establishment of a feast of general intercession was due to Odilo, abbot of Cluny (d. 1048).