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ANSELM, of license and cruelty. For these reasons the approach of Abp. Cant. the court was dreaded no less than an invasion; and when they heard the king was coming, they all quitted their houses, and ran away with their effects.

Eadmer, 1. 4. p. 94.

ceives ho

To put a stop to these disorders, the king set forth a proclamation, by virtue of which those that were convicted of any of the barbarities above mentioned, were to have their eyes pulled out, or their hands, or feet, or some other members cut off, as the ministers of justice should think fit. This order being strictly executed, gave a check to the insolencies of the Normans, and proved an effectual remedy.

After the recess of the synod and convention, Anselm retired to Canterbury, where he consecrated Ralph, abbot of Anselm re- Sagium in Normandy, to the see of Rochester, having first mage of the received an oath of homage and fidelity from him. The reason of this unusual acknowledgment to Anselm was, because the disposal of the bishoprick of Rochester beEadmer, P. longed to the see of Canterbury; the archbishops, therefore, being the patrons of that see, the homage was done upon the score of the temporalities.

bishop of Rochester,

and why.

96.

Turgot elected bishop of St. Andrews.

296.

This year, Turgot, a monk of Durham, being chosen bishop of St. Andrews, by Alexander the king, with the clergy and laity of Scotland, was sent to York for his consecration; but Gerard, archbishop of that province, being lately dead, and Thomas, his successor, not consecrated, the solemnity could not proceed. Ralph, bishop of Durham, proposed to consecrate Turgot at York, in the presence of Thomas, the bishops of Scotland, and the Orcades, being taken in to assist at the ordination. But this expedient being not warrantable without leave from the archbishop of Canterbury, he dispatched a gentleman to Anselm to desire his consent. The archbishop refused the bishop of Durham's request, and sent him word, that the elect archbishop of York could not act till after consecration; and that during this incapacity, he had no authority to substitute any suffragan for the office of consecration; and, therefore, if Turgot could not stay for his character till Thomas was better qualified, he must come to Canterbury and receive it there.

This Turgot being a person of note, it may not be improper to give a short account of him. As to his extraction,

he was a Saxon of no disreputable family; and when Eng- HENRYI. land was conquered by the Normans, he was secured in the K. of Eng. castle of Lincoln as one of the hostages for that county; but by bribing the keeper he soon made his escape, and putting himself on board a Norwegian, arrived at Norway and travelled to the court; where, making a tolerable figure, and behaving himself like a man of probity and religion, he was well received by persons of quality. At last king Olaus, who was a prince of extraordinary devotion, took notice of him, and understanding he was an English clergyman, made use of him to instruct him in the Holy Scriptures. And now, by the bounty of the king and the nobility, Turgot was furnished with a very plentiful fortune; but having a strong desire for retirement, found little satisfaction in it. In short, after some years' stay, he embarked for England with a very considerable cargo; but meeting with a storm in his voyage, he lost all his effects, and got to shore with great difficulty. Upon his arrival, he applied himself to Walker, bishop of Durham, told him his misfortune, and how desirous he was of living in a cloister. The bishop recommended him to Alwin, prior of Durham, who gave him the habit, after whose death he was promoted to the priory, in which post he managed himself to great commendation for about twenty years; that is, till his election to the bishoprick of St. Andrews.

Hoveden.

Annal. fol. 261.

York, en

himself from

dency upon the see of

To return to Anselm: Thomas, elect of York, not moving for his consecration at Canterbury so soon as was ex- Thomas, pected, Anselm put him in mind of this delay in a letter, in elect of which he acquaints him, that according to the canons, a deavours to disengage bishop's see ought not to be vacant more than three months; that now, since the king, by the advice of his adepenbarons, and with Anselm's consent, had elected him for the archbishoprick of York, he ought to have applied forthwith for his consecration. He enjoins him therefore to come to Canterbury, within a time prefixed for this purpose; and in case he shall fail to make his appearance, Anselm declares the jurisdiction of the province of York belongs to himself, and that he shall manage accordingly.

Thomas, making dilatory excuses, and sending an unsatisfactory answer, Anselm wrote to pope Paschal to stop Thomas's pall, in case he moved for it, till his holiness

Canterbury.

Eadmer,

1. 4. p. 97.

ANSELM, should be informed by letters from Anselm that Thomas Abp. Cant. had received his consecration, and made the customary profession of canonical obedience to the archbishop of Canterbury. The pope wrote him an answer and promised to satisfy his request.

Eadmer, p. 98, 99. Eadmer. p. 100.

Anselm's

By the complexion of these proceedings it appears, that Thomas, and the chapter of York, were in concert to throw off the usual acknowledgment to the see of Canterbury, and set up for an independent province. They conceived the present juncture, if rightly managed, very favourable to their design; for now Anselm's constitution seemed almost worn out, and very unlikely to last long; provided, therefore, Thomas could throw in any colourable delays, and put off his consecration till after Anselm's death, the point might probably be carried; for it was believed the see of Canterbury would not be immediately filled; and if Thomas was consecrated during the vacancy, the profession of canonical obedience might be slipped, there being no archbishop of Canterbury to demand it of him.

Anselm perceived Thomas trifled with him in prospect of this advantage, and, therefore, finding himself near his end, he endeavoured to countermine the elect of York, and secure the rights of his own see to posterity. To this purpose he wrote another letter to Thomas, to this sense: "He last letter to commands him in the name of God, not to presume upon all the Eng. lish bishops. any part of the episcopal office, till he should come off from his revolt against the see of Canterbury, and make the customary submission of his predecessors; but if he chose rather to persist in his present methods, he conjures all the bishops of Great Britain, under the censure of perpetual excommunication, neither to consecrate him themselves, nor to own his communion, in case he got himself consecrated by any foreign prelate. He likewise charges Thomas under the censure and solemnity above mentioned, never to receive consecration for the archbishoprick of York, till he had professed his canonical obedience to the see of Canterbury.

Eadmer.

p. 102.

Anselm sent a copy of this letter to every one of the English prelates, commanding each of them, upon their canonical obedience, to treat Thomas according to the contents of his letter, and no otherwise.

This, as far as it appears, was the last publick business HENRY I. managed by Anselm; for, as Eadmer, who was one of his K. of Eng. family, reports, he died soon after at Canterbury, in the six- His death. teenth year of his prelacy, and of his age the seventy- Dom. 1109. sixth.

Anselm was extracted from a considerable family his father's name was Gondulphus, and his mother's Hemeberga. He was born in the year 1033, at Aoste, a town at the foot of the Alps, belonging to the duke of Savoy. After having gone through a course of study, and travelled for some time in Burgundy and France, he turned monk in the abbey of Bec, and put himself under the government of Lanfranc, prior of that monastery.

April, Anno

297.

Anselm.

New Ec

Cent. 11. p. 92.

ings and

When Anselm engaged himself thus to the cloister he was no more than seven-and-twenty years of age. About three years after, when Lanfranc was made abbot of Caen, Anselm succeeded him in the priory; and when Herluin, abbot of Bec, died, Anselm was promoted to the abbacy. The Antiquit. rest of the history of this great prelate has been mentioned Britan. in already, I shall therefore proceed to a brief recital of his Du Pin, writings. The largest edition of his works is the last, cles. Hist. published by Father Gerberon; it is divided into three parts: the first of these, containing dogmatical tracts, is entitled His writMonologia; it begins with a treatise of the existence of God, character. of his attributes, and of the Holy Trinity; it is called Monologia, because it is thrown into the form of soliloquy and meditation, and represents a person who reasons with himself in search of divine truths, and explains them as they come up in the discovery. In this division he treats of the fall of the devil, acquaints the reader why God made man, treats the subject of original sin, and explains the manner of its communication to Adam's posterity. He proceeds to examine the liberty of the will, and the consistency of this freedom with the divine prescience. To proceed:

The second part of this learned prelate's works contains practical and devotional tracts. For instance: homilies, poems in contempt of the world (which last piece is questionable as to the author,) prayers, meditations, &c.

The third part of the division takes in Anselm's letters, in four books. The two first books were written in the cloister in Normandy. The third was composed when he

ANSELM, was archbishop. And as for the fourth, it was never yet Abp. Cant. printed.

Du Pin, New Eccles. Hist. Cent. 11. p. 93. et deinc.

Having just mentioned this archbishop's works, I shall give the reader the judgment of monsieur Du Pin upon them. "We do not meet," says this learned critick, “with any ecclesiastical writers before St. Anselm, who wrote after so scholastick a manner, started so many metaphysical questions, or argued with the appearance of so much logick and acuteness, as he has done. He is also the first who composed long prayers, in the form of meditations. His letters are written in a less elaborate and artificial style; neither are they so correct as the former. His exhortations are plain homilies, interspersed with a great many mystical notions, in which there is neither much rhetorick nor morality. He does not seem to have been any great master in positive divinity; however, he had read St. Augustine's works, and took many principles out of them, which he makes use of in his reasonings upon subjects of divinity 2.

2 In none of the Church histories do we find so elaborate an account of Anselm as this of Collier's: nor is he undeserving of this extensive memorial, for, with all his defects, Anselm was truly a great man, and strongly influenced the destinies of his age. His most remarkable characteristic appears to have been resolution, or fortitude: he exhibited in an eminent degree the "justum et tenacem propositi virum." Several of the most important relations of theology, which had been kept alive through the dark ages by Isidore, Paulinus, Rabanus Maurus, Alcuin, Photius, Psellus, Erigena, and Claudius, received a new and powerful impulse from the genius of Anselm. His explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity, as a series of theophanies or divine developments, was afterwards adopted by several illustrious writers. In devotional compositions Anselm particularly excelled. To him is generally attributed the book entitled "Augustine's Meditations," translated into English by Stanhope, accompanied by more acknowledged treatises. Bernard seems in many respects closely to have imitated Anselm. From him he borrowed many of his arguments in the famous dispute with Abelard, and from him his oratorical pathos of language seems to have been derived. These two illustrious men were the chief lights of their century, and the originators of much of that scholastic divinity which flourished under the auspices of Albertus, Buonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas. Unfortunately they carried several of the tenets of St. Augustine too far, and became infected with certain Manichean doctrines, which that father unwittingly brought into the Church. Gerson and Thomas à Kempis (also translated by Stanhope) were wise enough to take advantage of the best part of their writings without becoming entangled by their sophistries. Among these sophistries one of the most practically injurious was that which maintained that the pope had a right to interfere with the spiritual authority of Christian princes within their own territories. Anselm forgot the established canon, that kings are as absolutely divine, sacred, and ecclesiastical supremes, within their own kingdoms, as the pope can be within his own popedom. By overlooking this condition of the king as supreme, as the Lord's anointed, who, within his own kingdom, is to be honoured next to God, even as God's representative, Anselm occasioned many of the cala

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