Who was Anselm of Canterbury?

Lanfranc and Anselm are names famous in church history at this time, though not so much for grace as for learning and controversy: both were archbishops of Canterbury. They had both been monks, and celebrated teachers in that humble rank. Upwards of four thousand scholars attended the prelections of Lanfranc when a monk at Caen. Anselm was of equal reputation in Normandy. Lanfranc, however has the unenviable reputation of confirming, by his great influence and learning, the dogma of transubstantiation. In the darkness of the tenth century it had made its first authoritative appearance in the church. It was attacked by Berengar of Tours, who used all the powers of his mind, and all the resources within his reach, to demonstrate its unsoundness. But Lanfranc defended it, and having the majority of the clergy on his side, Berengar was confuted, stripped of all his preferments, and condemned to a rigorous seclusion for the remainder of his life. Berengarism became a term of reproach, and was considered a heresy. Thus the mysterious dogma of the Real Presence was established about the middle of the eleventh century. Lanfranc died in 1089. William Rufus appointed Anselm to be his successor. He has the reputation of being a great divine, a sincere Christian, and most blameless in his life. He died in 1109, being the sixteenth year of his archbishopric, and the seventy-sixth of his age. Both Lanfranc and Anselm, we need scarcely say, were zealous supporters of the power of Rome.

William was succeeded by William Rufus, who as long as Lanfranc lived was held in restraint, but when the archbishop died (in 1089) he gave way to profligate living, and made free with the revenues of the church, keeping places vacant that he might spend the money. No successor to Lanfranc was appointed for four years. A severe illness was declared to be a judgment on the king, and he now appointed Anselm as archbishop.

Anselm was born in Piedmont, and had settled at Bec. In 1063 he had been made prior, and in 1078, abbot. Here he became very famous by his writings on theology, grammar, etc., and pupils flocked to him from all quarters: many questions were addressed to him, and his answers were valued as oracles from heaven.

He has been accounted the most learned man in theology since Augustine, and has been described as the setter forth of what is called natural theology.

Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury.

During the latter part of eleventh century we meet with the famous names of Lanfranc, Anselm, and Berengar. A fresh impulse was given to intellectual activity by the labours of these and other eminent teachers. It was about this time that the old cathedral schools developed into seminaries of general learning, and these became the parents of our modern universities. This intellectual activity, following a long apathy, became so extremely attractive that thousands crowded to the lectures, and, like men long debarred from the tree of knowledge, too eagerly embraced what they heard. But it was a reaction against the dogmatic authority of the church, which taught men that it was henceforth possible to reason and inquire.

Peter Abelard was the most audacious, and by far the most popular, of all the lecturers on dialectics — professedly the science or art of discriminating truth from error by human reason. This remarkable man was born in 1079, near Nantes, in Brittany. His father, Berengar, was lord of the castle of Le Pallet, and although Peter was his eldest son, he early preferred "the conflicts of disputation to the trophies of arms," and, resigning the family inheritance of his brothers, betook himself to the life of a scholar. He was first a pupil of Rosellin, then of William archdeacon of Paris, and also of Anselm, theological lecturer of Laon. But the long and extraordinary history of this man we need not follow. It is a history of victories, crimes, and misfortunes. He was at once the representative and the victim of that scholastic theology which endangered the power and the constitution of the Roman church. He was the first instance of a man professing the science of theology without being a priest. Wherever he went, thousands of enthusiastic scholars surrounded his chair. "Crowds," says Bernard's biographer, "amounting to thousands, crossed high mountains and broad seas, and endured every inconvenience of life, to enjoy the privilege of hearing Abelard lecture." "His eloquence," says another, "was so fascinating, that the listener found himself irresistibly carried away by the stream; arid if an opponent was hardy enough to stand up against him, the acuteness of his logic was as infallible as the torrent of his oratory had been, and in every combat he carried away the prize."*

After various conflicts, Anselm sent two of the clergy to Rome, to inquire which of the rival popes (Clement III. and Urban II.) had the best claim. They judged Urban should be acknowledged as pope, and Anselm requested permission to go to Rome to receive the "pall" of office. The king refused; but Urban, on being acknowledged the true pope, sent a pall for the archbishop. This again was a cause for dispute. William wanted Anselm to receive it from his hands; but he refused. At length the pope's legate laid it on the altar at Canterbury, and the archbishop took it from thence.

After repeated hindrances, Anselm started for Rome (A.D. 1098), but was searched at Dover lest he was carrying money to the pope. At Rome he was received with great distinction, and was spoken of as "the holy man." Envoys were also sent by the king to Rome, and the pope told these that everything must be restored to the archbishop under pain of excommunication; but, by large presents from the king in private, this was averted!

This convinced Anselm that he could not hope for much from the pope, so he retired to Lyons where he remained a year and a half. There he heard of the death of Urban, in July, 1099, and of that of William in 1100.

While abroad, Anselm finished a treatise on the Incarnation, which is said to have been the basis of much that has been written since. He shews that there must be a satisfaction for sin; and the necessity that this satisfaction should be rendered by One who is perfect God and perfect Man.

Anselm strongly opposed his own appointment. He much preferred his quiet monastery and time for study, to having to do with such a king as William. He compared the position to a young untamed bull being yoked to an old and feeble sheep: the poor sheep would be dragged to death.

All opposition, however, was useless: being in England at the time he was carried into the king's sick chamber at Gloucester, the crosier was forced into his hands, and notwithstanding his struggles, he was hurried away into a church and hailed as archbishop of Canterbury.

The king recovered, and was now worse than before, and Anselm soon found his position was not a bed of roses. The king still wanted money, and the archbishop learned that he was expected to send to the king a contribution. He sent �500, in the hope that the king would be favourable to the church. The king would at first have received the money; but some about him declared that it was a paltry sum, and was not nearly as much as should have been sent by one receiving such an office. The archbishop said he could not then send more; but it would not be his last gift. The king, however, refused to receive it, and the archbishop distributed it among the poor.

Henry I. succeeded in England. He invited Anselm to return to his office, and he filled up the vacancies in the church. But a dispute arose at once about investiture. The king claimed it, and the archbishop claimed it as from the pope. Messengers were sent to the pope � Paschal II. now � but he refused to give way to the king, and encouraged the archbishop to resist.

Anselm again went to Rome, and messengers also went from the king, respecting investiture � each claiming it as their right. At length a compromise was agreed on � that the king should forego investiture, but that, for the present, bishops and abbots should be permitted to do homage; while those who had been invested by him should be admitted to communion on such terms as the two envoys of the pope should agree. This was a decided victory for Rome.

"The earlier ordinances of William the Conqueror for the separation of the ecclesiastical from the lay tribunals were never carried out to the extent of exempting churchmen from responsibility to the law. But it is also true, that both the Conqueror and his successors, down to John, endeavoured to steer a middle course between canonism and prerogative. In their solicitude to stand well with the court of Rome, they often took steps which endangered the safety, but certainly never shifted the ancient basis, of the law of the land, or the rights of the crown. In the bitter quarrel between Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury and Henry I., the latter stoutly maintained his right to determine which of the two rival pretenders to the papacy the clergy of his dominions should recognize. And when Anselm, without the king's consent, insisted upon transferring his spiritual allegiance to Urban II. in preference to his rival Clement III., Henry bluntly informed him that 'he knew of no law or custom which entitled a subject, without the king's license, to set up a pope of his own over the kingdom of England; and that any man who should presume to take out of his hands the decision of that question would have as good a right to take the crown from his head!' . . . "

"The struggle between Henry and Anselm was long and obstinate. The bishop fled to Rome; the king seized the temporalities of his See. While the contest was still undecided, a papal officer appeared on the coast announcing himself as legate of the court of Rome, entrusted with a legatine power over all England from the pope. But the king held it to be a special prerogative of his crown to accept or reject at pleasure such interferences with the ordinary course of ecclesiastical government by a foreign prince; and the legate was sent away without having been admitted to the presence of the king. About fifteen years afterwards, the same pope made a second attempt to introduce a legate-extraordinary into the kingdom, but with no better success.... A third attempt of the same pontiff was equally unsuccessful. It was indeed, by this time, pretty well understood that the law and custom of England repudiated the legative commission, as an illegal interference with the ordinary course of church government, which the common law had placed under the superintendence of the sovereign."

But after the death of the wise and able Henry I., which took place in 1135, the crafty and persevering pope — Alexander III. — was more successful. In the reign of Stephen, a feeble monarch, a legate from Rome made his way into our island. The Anglican prelates fully understood the drift of the movement; and a synod held in London protested, in the face of the legate, against the presumption of a foreign priest in taking the presidential chair above archbishops, bishops, abbots, and the assembled nobility of the whole realm of England. The protest, however, remained without effect. A timid and time-serving spirit was creeping into the heart of the Anglican church. The prevailing ignorance of the mass of the people, the secular character of the clergy, the miserable state of the whole country, during the reign of Stephen, afforded a favourable opportunity for the systematic encroachments of the Romanizing party upon the prerogative of the crown and the liberties of the national church. The Anglo-Norman bishops at the time were barons rather than prelates, their palaces were castles, their retainers vassals in arms: almost all were wearing arms, mingling in war, and indulging in all the cruelties and exactions of war. Such were the prelates of England when Henry II. ascended the throne in 1154. The opposition of Becket to this rich and powerful king, throws a clearer light on the secular ambition of Rome than any of the conflicts we have yet recorded.

Chapter 13. England. � William the Conqueror. � Lanfranc reforms the Church. � William not servile to Rome. � William Rufus. � Anselm archbishop. � He retires from England. � Henry I. � Anselm's return. � Oxford and Cambridge Universities. � Henry II. � Martyrs in England. � Thomas a Becket. � Richard. � John surrenders the kingdom to Rome. � Henry III. Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln. � He successfully opposes the pope Edward III. � He withstands Rome Bradwardine. � His work against Pelagius Wiclif. � The first English Reformer Scotland. � Struggles against Rome