Vigils Reading – St Anselm

he life of

ST ANSELM

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Anselm, son of a Lombard nobleman, was one of the outstanding figures

of the church in England. After a restless youth, in 1059 he entered the

monastery of Bec in Normandy, whose prior was Lanfranc, who was to precede

him in the see of Canterbury. During the next thirty years Anselm wrote several

of the philosophical and theological works that have been so influential, works

that are characterized by a use of rational argument that made him “the father of

Scholasticism”; but his intellectual figure was softened by the sensitiveness of

his mind and the generosity of his heart. He was elected abbot of Bec in 1078,

and in 1093 King William II consented to nominate him to the archbishopric of

Canterbury.

Henceforth. Anselm’s public life was almost wholly conditioned by

dissensions with William II and Henry I over relations between the church and

the state as represented by the king. Among the principles at stake was the

election of bishops without interference from the crown. William II soon made

determined efforts to get rid of the archbishop, and in 1097 Anselm went to

Rome, where he remained for three years. During that time he wrote “Cur Deus

Homo”, one of the best known works on the Atonement. He also attended the

Council of Bari, and was instrumental in resolving the doubts of the Greek

bishops in southern Italy about the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Son

(Filioque).

He returned to England when Henry I came to the throne, but Henry soon

claimed rights in respect of bishops and abbots that a council in Rome had been

unable to recognize; Anselm was again in exile abroad from 1003 to 1007.

As a pastor he encouraged the ordination of native Englishmen among his

clergy for whom he enforced celibacy; he emulated St Wulfstan in his opposition

to slavery, and he restored to the calendar the names of some of the English

saints that his predecessor Lanfranc had removed. As a statesmen he was

deficient: the monastery, not the court, was where he was at home. Many

incidents recorded of his life testify no less than his writings to the

attractiveness of his personal character. Anselm was canonized by being

included among the doctors of the church by Pope Clement XI in 1720.