BOOK VI.
FROM THE DEPOSITION OF POPE GREGORY VI. TO THE DEATH
OF POPE CELESTINE III, A.D. 1046-1198.
CHAPTER V.
ENGLAND FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE DEATH OF ST.
ANSELM.
A.D. 1066-1108.
THE successful expedition of William of Normandy
produced important changes in the English church. At his coronation, which was
performed by Aldred, archbishop of York, William, as heir of Edward the
confessor, swore to administer equal justice to all his subjects but the
necessity of providing for his followers soon led him to disregard this pledge,
while a pretext was afforded by the obstinate resistance which he met with in
completing the subjugation of the country, and by the frequent insurrections of
the Saxons. Much property of churches and monasteries was confiscated, together
with the treasures which the wealthier English had deposited in the monasteries
for security. During the reign of Edward, the Norman influence had for a time
prevailed in England; many Normans had been advanced to high ecclesiastical
stations, and the system of alien priories—i.e. of annexing
priories and estates in England to foreign religious houses—had been largely
practised. But under the ascendency of Earl Godwin, Robert of Jumièges, the
Norman archbishop of Canterbury, had been obliged to leave the kingdom, and the
primacy had been conferred on Stigand, bishop of Winchester, who, after having
unsuccessfully applied for the pall to Leo IX, received it from the antipope
John of Velletri, and held his see in defiance of Alexander II. Stigand,
according to some writers, refused to officiate at the coronation of the
Conqueror, while others state that William refused his services; in any case,
he was obnoxious as a Saxon. William for a time affected to treat him with
great honour; but at a council held at Winchester under two papal legates in
1070, he was charged with having intruded into the seat of a living bishop;
with having irregularly held at once the sees of Winchester and Canterbury;
with the want of a properly-conferred pall, and with having used for a time
that of his ejected predecessor. These pretexts served for the deprivation of
the archbishop, which was followed by that of other native prelates, so that,
with a jingle exception, the English sees were soon in the hands of Normans,
who either had been appointed under Edward or were now promoted by the
Conqueror. The system of preferring foreigners was gradually extended to the
abbacies and lower dignities, and for a long series of years it was hopeless
for any Englishman, whatever his merit might be, to aspire to any considerable
station in the church of his own land. One Norman only, Guitmund, the opponent
of Berengar, is recorded as having ventured to refuse an English bishopric, and
to protest against a system so adverse to the interests of the church and of
the people.
The later Anglo-Saxon clergy are very unfavourably
represented to us by writers after the conquest. It is said that they were
scarcely able to stammer out the forms of Divine service—that any one who knew
“grammar” was regarded by his brethren as a prodigy; and religion as well as
learning had fallen into decay. But, although the increase of intercourse with
other countries eventually led to an improvement in the English church, it
seems questionable whether the immediate effect of the change introduced by the
conquest was beneficial. The new prelates were in general chosen for other than
ecclesiastical merits; they could not edify their flocks, whose language they
would have scorned to understand : the Anglo-Saxon literature, the richest by
far that any Teutonic nation as yet possessed, fell into oblivion and contempt;
the traditions of older English piety were lost; and there was no love or
mutual confidence to win for the new hierarchy the influence which the native
pastors had been able to exert for the enforcement of religion on their peopled
But while the dignities of the church were commonly
bestowed on illiterate warriors or on court-chaplains, the primacy was to be
otherwise disposed of Lanfranc had been sentenced by William to banishment from
Normandy for opposing his marriage with Matilda, as being within the forbidden
degrees; but, as he was on his way to leave the country, an accidental meeting
with the duke led to a friendly understanding, so that Lanfranc was employed to
obtain the pope’s sanction for the union, and a removal of the interdict under
which William’s territories had been laid. His success in this commission
recommended him to the duke’s favour; he was transferred from Bec to the
headship of St. Stephen’s at Caen, the noble abbey which William was required
to found in penance for the irregularity of his marriage, and, after having
already refused the archbishopric of Rouen, he was now urged to accept that of
Canterbury. It was not without much reluctance that he resolved to undertake so
onerous a dignity among a people of barbarous and unknown language; and the
difficulties which he experienced and foresaw in the execution of his office
speedily induced him to solicit permission from Alexander II to return to his
monastery; but the pope refused to consent, and Lanfranc thereupon requested
that the pall might be sent to him. The answer came from the archdeacon
Hildebrand—that, if the pall could be granted to any one without his personal
appearance at Rome, it would be granted to Lanfranc; but that the journey was
indispensable. On his arrival at Rome, the archbishop was treated with
extraordinary honour. The pope, who had formerly been his pupil at Bec, rose up
to bestowed on him two palls, as a mark of signal consideration—a compliment of
which it is said that there has never been another instance—and invested him
with the authority of legate. A question as to precedence was raised by Thomas,
archbishop of York, who had accompanied Lanfranc to Rome and contended that, by
the terms of Gregory’s instructions to Augustine, the primacy of England ought
to alternate between Canterbury and the northern see, for which he also claimed
jurisdiction over Worcester, Lichfield, and Lincoln. The pope declined to give
judgment, and remitted the questions to England, where, after discussions in
the king’s presence at Winchester and at Windsor, they were decided in favour
of Lanfranc on the ground of ancient custom. The archbishop of York was
required to promise submission to Canterbury, and, with his suffragans, to
attend councils at such places as the archbishop of Canterbury should appoint.
Lanfranc exerted himself to reform the disorders of
the English church (which it is very possible that, as a man trained in
entirely different circumstances, he may have somewhat overrated), and in his
labours for this purpose he was effectually supported by the king, who bestowed
on him his full confidence, and usually entrusted him with the regency during
his own absence on the continent. The primate used his influence to obtain the
promotion of deserving men to bishoprics. Many churches which had fallen into
ruin were rebuilt—among them the primate's own cathedral. Sees which had been
established in villages or small towns were removed to places of greater
importance; thus the bishopric of Selsey was transferred to Chichester, that of
Sherborne to Sarum, Elmham to Thetford, Dorchester (in Oxfordshire) to Lincoln,
Lichfield to Chester—a change agreeable to the ancient system of the church,
but perhaps suggested by the policy of William, who, by thus placing the
bishops in fortified cities, secured their assistance in preserving the
subjection of the people. Lanfranc—“the venerable father and comfort of monks”,
as he is styled by the Anglo-Saxon chronicler—was zealous for celibacy and
monasticism. The effects of Dunstan’s labours had passed away, and the English
clergy had again become accustomed to marry freely; but the Italian primate
renewed the endeavour to substitute monks for secular canons in cathedrals, and
serious struggles arose in consequence. Nor was the enforcement of celibacy on
the clergy complete; for, although a council at Winchester in 1076 enacted that
no canon should have a wife, and that for the future no married man should be
ordained priest or deacon, the rural clergy were, in contradiction to the
regulations which Gregory VII was labouring to enforce elsewhere, allowed by
the council to retain their wives. William was greatly indebted to Rome. His
expedition had been sanctioned by a consecrated banner, the gift of Alexander
II, and he had found the papal support valuable in carrying out his plans as to
the English church. But he was determined to make use of Rome—not to
acknowledge her as a mistress. He held firmly in his own grasp the government
of the church. By retraining from the sale of preferment—however he may have
been guilty of simony in that wider definition which includes the bestowal of
benefices for service or by favour—he earned the commendation of Gregory but he
promoted bishops and abbots by his own will, invested them by the feudal forms,
and took it upon himself to exempt the abbey which was founded in memory of his
victory near Hastings from all episcopal and monastic jurisdiction. No pope was
to be acknowledged in England, except by the king’s permission; nor, although
William allowed legates to hold synods in furtherance of his own views, was
anything to be treated or enacted at these meetings without his previous
sanction. The bishops were forbidden to obey citations to Rome; they were
forbidden to receive letters from the pope without showing them to the king;
nor were any of his nobles or servants to be excommunicated without his
licence. The bishop was no longer to sit in the same court with the sheriff but
his jurisdiction was confined to spiritual matters. The tenure of frank-almoign
(or free alms), under which the bishops had formerly held their lands, was
exchanged for the feudal tenure by barony; and the estates of the clergy became
subject to the same obligations as other lands.
In his ecclesiastical policy William was willingly
seconded by the primate. Lanfranc was indeed no devoted adherent of Gregory,
with whom he was probably dissatisfied on account of the indulgence which the
pope had shown to his antagonist Berengar. In a letter to a partisan of the
antipope, he professes neutrality as to the great contest of the time, and even
shows an inclination towards the imperial side. After censuring the unseemly
language which his correspondent had applied to Gregory, he adds—“Yet I believe
that the emperor has not undertaken so great an enterprise without much reason,
nor has he been able to achieve so great a victory without much aid from God”.
And, while he advises Guibert’s agent not to come to England, it is on the
ground that the king's leave ought first to be obtained—that England has not
rejected Gregory, or given a public adhesion to either pope, and that there is
room for hearing both parties before coming to a decisions. If such was the
archbishop's feeling as to the controversy between the pope and the emperor, he
could hardly fail to be wholly with his own sovereign in any questions between
England and Rome.
Gregory, in his letters to William and to Lanfranc,
spoke of the king with profuse expressions of the deepest respect, as
incomparably superior to all other princes of the age; and, when obliged to
censure any of his acts, he was careful to season the censure with compliments
to the king’s character, with remembrances of their old mutual regard, and of
the services which he had rendered to William in former days. But these
blandishments were thrown away on a sovereign whose policy was as decided, and
whose will was as strong, as those of Gregory himself. When, in 1079, the pope
required William to see to the payment of Peter-pence from England, and to
swear fealty to the apostolic see, the reply was cool and peremptory—“Your
legate has admonished me in your name to do fealty to you and your successors,
and to take better order as to the money which my predecessors have been
accustomed to send to the Roman church; the one I have admitted; the other I
have not admitted. I refused to do fealty, nor will I do it, because neither
have I promised it, nor do I find that my predecessors have performed it to
yours”. The payment was to be made, not as a tribute, but as alms. On receiving
this answer, the pope declared that money without obedience was worthless, and
at the same time he complained of the king's conduct in other respects; that,
by a presumption which no one even among heathen princes had ventured on, he
prevented the prelates of his kingdom from visiting the apostle's city; that he
had promoted to the see of Rouen the son of a priest—an appointment to which
Gregory was resolved never to consent. His legate was charged to threaten
William with the wrath of St. Peter unless he should repent, and to cite
certain representatives of the English and Norman bishops to a synod at Rome.
No heed was paid to this citation; but the pope submitted to the slight; and it
is certain that, but for the voluntary retirement of William's nominee,
Guitmund, the ally of Lanfranc in the Eucharistic controversy, the objection in
the case of Rouen would have been withdrawn. Equally unsuccessful were the
pope's attempts on Lanfranc. Again and again invitations, becoming by degrees
more urgent, required the archbishop to appear at Rome, where he had not been
since Gregory's election. After a time the pope expresses a belief that he is
influenced by fear of the king, but tells him that neither fear, nor love, nor
the difficulties of the journey, ought to detain him. Lanfranc, in his answer,
showed no disposition to comply; and he alluded, with an indifference which
must have been very annoying, to the failure of the pope's claim to fealty. At
length Gregory summoned the archbishop to set out for Rome within four months
after receiving his citation, and to appear there on a certain day, under pain
of deposition, but the citation was as vain as those before it, and the threat
was never followed up.
Gregory again found himself obliged to remonstrate in
the case of William’s half-brother, Odo, bishop of Bayeux. Odo, deluded (it is
said) by the arts of soothsayers, who assured him that a person of his name
was to be pope, sent large sums of money to Rome for the purpose of securing
himself an interest there, and enlisted a considerable force with which he
intended to make his way to Italy. But William, on discovering the project,
arrested and imprisoned him; and, in answer to an objection as to the bishop's
spiritual character, declared that he had proceeded against him, not as bishop,
but as earl of Kent. Gregory expostulated with the king, insisting on the
immunities of the clergy, with the pretended saying of St. Ambrose, that
royalty is less comparable to the episcopal dignity than lead to gold, and
quoting the text—“He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of Mine eye”; but
Odo remained in prison until his brother, when dying, reluctantly ordered his
release; and here, as in the other cases, conduct which would have drawn down
the most awful thunders of Rome on the head of a weaker prince, was allowed to
pass unpunished in the stern, able, powerful, and resolute master of England
and Normandy.
In 1087 the Conqueror was succeeded by William Rufus.
For a time the new king was kept within some degree of restraint by the
influence of Lanfranc, who had been his tutor; but on the archbishop’s death,
in 1089, his evil dispositions were altogether uncontrolled. William, according
to an ancient writer, “feared God but little, and men not at all”. His
character was utterly profane; his coarse and reckless wit was directed not
only against the superstitions of the age, or against the clergy, whom he despised
and hated, but against religion itself. The shameless debaucheries in which he
indulged gave an example which his subjects were not slow to imitate. The
rapacity by which he endeavoured to supply his profuse expenditure fell with
especial weight on the property of the church. In former times the revenues of
a vacant abbey had been committed to the bishop, and those of a vacant
bishopric to the archbishop, under whose superintendence they were applied to
religious or charitable uses; under the Conqueror, they were administered by a
clerk, who was accountable for his stewardship to the next incumbent. But
William's chosen adviser, a Norman ecclesiastic of low birth, named Ralph
Passeflaber or Flambard, devised the idea that, as bishoprics and abbacies were
fiefs of the crown, the profits of them during vacancy belonged to the
sovereign. Under this pretext William kept bishoprics long vacant; while the
diocese was left without a pastor, he extorted all that was possible from the
tenants of the see, by means alike oppressive to them and injurious to the
future bishop and the most unblushing simony was practised in the disposal of
ecclesiastical preferments.
After the death of Lanfranc, the primacy remained
vacant for nearly four years. In answer to entreaties that he would nominate a
successor, William swore, as he was wont, “by the holy face of Lucca”, that he
would as yet have no archbishop but himself; and when public prayers were
offered up for the direction of his choice, he said that the church might ask
what it pleased, but that he was resolved to take his own way. A severe
illness, which followed soon after, was regarded as a judgment of heaven, and
the king was earnestly urged to show his penitence by filling up the primacy,
and by redressing the grievances of his government. He consented, promised
amendment, and made choice of Anselm as archbishop.
Anselm was born of an honourable family at Aosta, in
1033 or the following year. His boyhood was devout, but was succeeded by a
somewhat irregular youth, more especially after the death of his pious and
gentle mother, to whom he had been deeply attached. The harshness with which
his father treated him produced a resolution to leave his home; he crossed the
Alps, and, after having, like Lanfranc, resided for some time at Avranches, he
became, at the age of twenty-seven, a monk at Bec, where the founder, Herluin,
was still abbot, while Lanfranc was prior and master of the school. On the
removal of Lanfranc to Caen in 1063, Anselm succeeded him in his offices, and
at the death of Herluin, in 1078, he was elected to the abbacy. With each
dignity which he attained, his anxious feeling of responsibility increased, and
he would have returned to the condition of a simple monk, but for the authority
of Mauritius, archbishop of Rouen. His fame speedily even surpassed that of
Lanfranc, and his name was widely spread by treatises on philosophical,
theological, and grammatical subjects. Pupils flocked to his instructions;
questions were addressed to him from all quarters, and his friend and
biographer, Edmer, tells us that his answers were received as oracles from
heaven. Since the time of St. Augustine, the church had produced no teacher of
equal eminence with Anselm, or so powerful in his influence on later ages. He
has been described as the founder of natural theology; but if this title is to
be applied to him, the term must be understood as signifying a theology which
aimed at bringing the aid of philosophical thought to the support of the most
rigid orthodoxy of the church. Whereas John Scotus had made philosophy his
foundation, and had endeavoured to reduce religion into accordance with it, the
method of Anselm was exactly the opposite; its character is expressed in the
title originally given to his ‘Proslogion’—‘Faith in search of Understanding’.
The object of that work is to prove the existence and attributes of the Deity
by a single argument. Edmer relates that, when the idea of such a proof had
entered into Anselm’s mind, he was unable to eat, drink, or sleep; it disturbed
him at his devotions, and, although he endeavoured to resist it as a temptation
of the devil, he could not rest until, in the watches of the night, a light
broke in on him a—“God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived; and
he who well understands this will understand that the Divine Being exists in
such a manner that His non-existence cannot even be conceived”. A monk named
Gaunilo wrote a short tract in reply, objecting that the conception of a thing
does not imply its existence, and exemplifying this by the fabulous island of
Atlantis to which Anselm rejoined that the illustration was inapplicable to the
question, since existence is a part of the perfections which are conceived of
as belonging to the Deity.
The character of Anselm was amiable, gentle and
modest. Simple and even severe, in his own habits, he was indulgent to others,
and the confidence which he placed in those below him, with his indifference to
the vulgar interests of the world, was often abused. Edmer draws a very
pleasing picture of his familiar intercourse, and relates many stories which
illustrate his wisdom, his kindly temper, his mild, yet keen and subtle humour,
e In one of these stories, an abbot “who was accounted very religious” applies
in despair for advice as to the treatment of the pupils in his monastery; he
had flogged them indefatigably both by day and by night, but, instead of
amending, they only grew worse. Anselm by degrees leads him to understand that
so brutal a discipline could only be expected to brutalize its objects, and the
abbot returns home to practise a gentler and a wiser system. But as the
exercise of Anselm’s philosophical genius was subordinated to the strictest
orthodoxy, so with his calm and peaceful nature he combined the most unbending
resolution in the cause of the hierarchical system. To this he seems to have
adhered, not from any feeling of interest or passion, or even of strong
personal conviction, but because it was sanctioned by the church, while the scandalous
abuses perpetrated by such sovereigns as William Rufus tended to blind him to
the existence of dangers on the other side; and his assertion of it was marked
by nothing of violence or assumption, but by an immoveable tenacity and
perseverance.
Anselm was already known and honoured in England,
which he had visited for the purpose of superintending the English estates of
his abbey. He had been acquainted with the Conqueror, who, in conversing with
him, laid aside his wonted sternness; and he had been the guest of Lanfranc,
who had profited by his advice to deal tenderly with the peculiarities and
prejudices of the people committed to his care. It was with great reluctance
that, during the vacancy of the archbishopric, he yielded to the repeated invitations
of Hugh Lupus, earl of Chester, who desired to see him in a sickness which was
supposed to be mortal: for he knew that popular opinion had designated him as
the successor of his old master; he was unwilling to exchange his monastery,
with its quiet opportunities of study and thought, and his position of
influence as a teacher, for the pomp and troubled dignity of the English
primacy; and, honouring royalty, disliking contention, but firmly resolved to
maintain the cause of the church, he shrank from the connexion with such a
prince as William—a connexion which he compared to the yoking a young untamed
bull with an old and feeble sheep. He therefore endeavoured, with a sincerity
which cannot reasonably be questioned, to decline the offer; but he was carried
into the sick king's chamber at Gloucester, the crosier was forced into his
hands, and notwithstanding his struggles he was hurried away to a neighbouring
church, where the people received him with acclamations as archbishop, and the
clergy sang Te Deum for the election. He did not, however,
consider himself at liberty to accept the primacy until he had been released
from his obligations to his monks, to the archbishop of Rouen, and to his
sovereign, duke Robert of Normandy.
The king recovered, and relapsed into courses even
worse than before. The works of amendment which he had begun were undone, and
when Gundulf, bishop of Rochester, ventured gently to remind him of his late
promises, he disavowed the obligation in a speech of outrageous profanity.
Anselm waited on him at Dover, and stated the terms on which only he would
consent to be archbishop—that he should be allowed to enjoy all the rights of
his see which Lanfranc had possessed, with such portions of its alienated property
as he might be able to recover; that William should pay him the same regard in
spiritual matters which the king claimed from the archbishop in temporal
things; and that no offence should arise as to his acknowledgment of pope
Urban, who had not yet been recognized in England. The answer was, that he
should have all which Lanfranc had had, but that the other points must remain
undecided for the present. The archbishop was invested in September 1093, but
his consecration did not take place until the 4th of December. At this ceremony
the archbishop of York, who took the chief part in it, objected to the title of
"”metropolitan of all England"” on the ground that it implied a
denial of the metropolitan dignity of his own Bec. The objection was allowed,
and the title of primate was substituted.
The first entrance of Anselm into his city had been
disturbed by the appearance of Flambard, who in the king’s name instituted
against him a suit of which the subject is not recorded and other events soon
occurred to justify the apprehensions with which he had undertaken his office.
William was busy in raising subsidies for an intended expedition into Normandy,
and the archbishop, after his consecration, was advised by his friends to send
him a contribution of five hundred pounds, in the hope that it might render the
king favourable to the church. William was at first pleased with the gift, but
some of his advisers persuaded him that it was too little—that the archbishop,
in consideration of his promotion, ought to have given twice or four times as
much. Anselm replied that he could not raise more without distressing his
tenants; that it should not be his last gift; that a little freely given was
better than a larger sum extorted : and, as William persevered in refusing the
money, he bestowed it on the poor for the benefit of the king's soul,
comforting himself with the thought that he could not be charged with even the
appearance of simony. The king was deeply offended. He evaded the fulfilment of
his promise as to the restoration of the archbishop’s estates. He refused him
leave to hold a council for the suppression of disorders among the clergy and
monks, and for the general reformation of morals; and when Anselm urged the
necessity of filling up the vacant abbacies, he asked, “What is that to
you?—are not the abbeys mine?”. “They are yours” replied the primate, “to
defend and protect as advocate, but they are not yours to invade and to
devastate”. The knowledge of the royal disfavour naturally raised up or
encouraged a host of lesser enemies, who industriously persecuted Anselm by
their encroachments on his property and by other annoyances. The bishops
advised him to propitiate William by a new offering of five hundred pounds; but
he declared that he would not oppress his exhausted tenants, and that such a proceeding
would be alike unworthy of the king and of himself.
Notwithstanding all discouragements, the archbishop
set vigorously about the work of reform. In the beginning of Lent, when the
court was at Hastings, he refused to give the customary ashes and benediction
to the young nobles who affected an effeminate style of dress and
manners—wearing long hair, which they curled and adorned like women. It is not
to be supposed that he regarded for their own sake these follies, or the
fashionable shoes in which the invention of Fulk of Anjou had been developed by
one of William’s courtiers, who twisted their long points into the likeness of
a ram's horn. But he dreaded the tendency of such fashions to extinguish a high
and active spirit, and he denounced them from a knowledge that they were
connected with habits of luxury and gaming, and with the unnatural vices which
had become rife in England since the conquest.
Since the death of Gregory VII neither of the rival
popes had been acknowledged in England. The king had come to regard it as a
special prerogative of his crown, distinguishing him from other sovereigns,
that within his dominions no pope should be recognized except by his
permission; and this opinion had been encouraged by courtly prelates. The right
of Urban had, however, been admitted in Normandy, and Anselm, as we have seen,
had stipulated that he should be allowed to adhere to the profession which, as
abbot of Bec, he had made to that pontiff. He now, on William’s return from the
Norman expedition, requested leave to go to Rome, and to receive his pall from
the pope. “From which pope?” asked the king; and, on Anselm’s replying “From
Urban”, he angrily declared that neither his father nor himself had ever
allowed any one to be styled pope in England without their special warrant; as
well might the archbishop attempt to deprive him of his crown.
Anselm on this desired that the question whether his
duty to the pope were inconsistent with his duty to the king might be discussed
at a council; and an assembly of bishops and nobles met for the purpose at
Rockingham, in March 1095.
The archbishop took his stand on the principle that
God ought to be obeyed rather than man. Two only of his own order, the bishops
of Rochester and Chichester, supported him. William of St. Calais, bishop of
Durham, and Herbert of Norwich, who from his character was styled the
Flatterer, were vehement in their opposition; while the rest, accustomed as
they had been to the Conqueror’s ecclesiastical supremacy, and perplexed by the
discord between powers which had until then acted in concert, behaved with timidity
and indecision. The king maintained that it was an invasion of his rights for a
subject to look to any other authority, even in spiritual things. The bishops
advised the archbishop to make full submission; but, when William asked them to
disown him, they answered that they could not venture on such a step against
the primate, not only of England, but of Scotland, Ireland, and the adjacent
islands. Anselm, who throughout retained his composure, and at one time even
fell asleep while the bishops had withdrawn for a consultation, professed his
readiness to answer for his conduct in the proper place; and his enemies were
alarmed at the words, which they rightly understood to imply that, as
metropolitan, he was amenable to the pope's jurisdiction only. The bishop of
Durham, after having in vain attempted to influence Anselm, told the king that,
as the archbishop had Scripture and the canons in his favour, the only way to
deal with him was by force—that he should be stripped of the ensigns of his
dignity, and should be banished from the realm. On being again asked by William
whether they renounced the archbishop, some of the prelates replied that they
did so absolutely; others, that they renounced him in so far as he pretended to
act by Urban’s authority. The king was indignant at the qualified answer, and
those who had made it were afterwards obliged to pay heavily for the recovery
of his favour. The nobles behaved with greater spirit than the bishops,
declaring that, although they had not taken any oath to the primate, they could
not disown him, especially as he had committed no offence; while the people,
who surrounded the place of meeting, were zealous in his cause, and loudly
exclaimed against his cowardly brethren as Judases, Pilates, and Herods. At
length it was resolved that there should be a truce until the octave of
Whitsunday. Anselm was ordered in the meantime to confine himself to his
diocese; but the truce was broken on the king's side by the pillage of the
archbishop's estates, by attacks on his train, and by the banishment of some of
his confidential friends.
William took advantage of the interval to send two
ecclesiastics to Rome, with instructions to inquire into the claims of the
rival popes, to make terms with the claimant whom they should find to be
legitimate, and to obtain from him a pall for the archbishop of Canterbury,
without naming Anselm, for whom the king hoped by this means to substitute
another. The decision of the envoys was in favour of Urban, from whom a pall
was brought to England by Walter, bishop of Albano. The king agreed to
acknowledge Urban; but when he asked the legate to depose Anselm, he was told
that it was impossible. The archbishop was summoned to court, and was desired
to receive the pall from William's own hands. He replied that it was not for
any secular person to give the pall; and, as he persevered in his refusal, it
was agreed that the pall should be laid by the legate on the high altar at
Canterbury, and that the archbishop should take it thence, as from the hand of
St. Peter.
Robert of Normandy was now about to set out for the
crusade, and had agreed to pledge the duchy to his brother in consideration of
a sum of money for the expenses of his expedition. In order to make up this
payment, William had recourse to severe exactions. He seized the plate of
monasteries; and when the monks remonstrated, he met them in his usual style by
asking— “Have ye not shrines of gold and silver for dead men’s bones?”. Anselm
contributed liberally; but he was soon after required to answer in the king's
court for having failed in the proper equipment of some soldiers whom he had
supplied for an expedition against the Welsh. In this summons the archbishop
saw a design to bring him under feudal subjection, and he knew that he could
not look for justice, while the hopelessness of any satisfactory relations with
such a prince as William became continually more and more evident. He therefore
resolved to lay his case before the pope, and requested leave to go to Rome
that he might represent the state of the English church. William met the
application by telling him that he had no need to make such a journey, since he
had done nothing to require absolution, and, as for advice, he was fitter to
give it to the pope than the pope to him. The suit was thrice urged in vain.
Anselm declared that he must obey God rather than man; and that, even if leave
were refused, he must go to Rome. The bishops whom he requested to support him,
told him that they reverenced his piety and heavenly conversation, but that it
was too far above them; that, if he would descend to their level, they would
gladly give him their assistance; but that otherwise they must decline to do
anything inconsistent with their duty to the king. William required him either
to renounce his design, and swear that he would never apply to St. Peter, or to
quit the kingdom for ever, but Oct. 15, finally, at Winchester, yielded an
ungracious consent. The archbishop offered to give him his blessing unless it
were refused; and, on William’s replying that he did not refuse it, they parted
with a solemn benediction.
At Canterbury the archbishop took from the altar the
staff and the dress of a pilgrim. When about to embark at Dover, he was
subjected to the indignity of having his baggage publicly searched by William
of Warelwast, one of the king’s chaplains, in the vain hope of finding
treasures; and after his departure his archiepiscopal acts were annulled, the
property of his see was confiscated, and his tenants were oppressed by the
king’s officers more mercilessly than ever.
Anselm had been forbidden to take his way through
Normandy. The earlier part of his journey was a triumphant progress; the latter
part was, from the fear of antipapalists and of robbers, performed in the garb
of a simple monk, undistinguished by appearance from his companions, Baldwin
and the biographer Edmer, precentor of Canterbury, whom in one of his epistles
he describes as “the staff of his old age”. On arriving at Rome, he was
received with extraordinary distinction by Urban, who declared that he ought to
be treated as an equal—as “pope and patriarch of another world”—and wrote to
the king of England, desiring that the archiepiscopal property should be
released from confiscation. After a stay of ten days in the city, Anselm
withdrew to a monastery near Telese, incompliance with an invitation from the
abbot, who was a Norman and had formerly been his pupil. In order that he might
escape the extreme heat of summer, his host conveyed him to a retreat among the
neighbouring hills; and here he finished a treatise which he had begun in
England, on the purpose of the Saviour’s incarnation—a treatise of which the
doctrine has become a standard of orthodoxy even in communions where the
obligation to Anselm is little suspected. In the opening of it, he states that
the subject was engaging the attention not only of the learned, but of many
uneducated Christians. He shows the necessity of a satisfaction for sin in
order that man might become capable of that blessedness for which he was
originally created; the impossibility that this satisfaction should be rendered
except by God, while yet it must be made by man, from whom it was due; and the
consequent necessity that the Mediator, who was to effect the reconciliation by
his voluntary death, should at once be perfect God and perfect man.
Anselm in his retreat was regarded with veneration by
all who saw him—even by the Saracens of the Apulian army. He thought of
resigning his dignities, and of devoting himself to labour in this new sphere;
but the pope rejected the proposal, and required him to attend a council which
was to be held at Bari, before the body of St. Nicolas, with a view to the
reconciliation of the Greek and Latin churches. At this assembly, when the
question of procession of the Holy Ghost was proposed, Urban, after arguing from
one of Anselm’s treatises, desired the archbishop himself to stand forward, and
pronounced a high eulogium on his character and sufferings. Anselm was ready to
discuss the subject, but was requested to defer his argument until the
following day, when he spoke with a clearness and an eloquence which won
universal admiration. The pope then entered on the grievances of the English
church; the council was unanimous for the excommunication of William; and,
Urban, inspirited by his success in the great movement of the crusade, was
about to pronounce the sentence, when Anselm, throwing himself at his feet,
entreated him to forbear, and gained fresh admiration by this display of
mildness towards his oppressor.
The archbishop accompanied Urban to Rome, where he was
treated with a reverence second only to the pope, while the people, impressed
by his demeanour, spoke of him not as “the man” or “the archbishop”, but as
“the man”. About Christmas envoys from England appeared—William of Warelwast
being one. The pope told them that their master must restore everything to the
archbishop on pain of excommunication; but in private interviews they were
able, by means of large presents, to obtain a truce until Michaelmas. At the
synod of the following Lent, the decrees against investitures and homage were
renewed, and were received with general acclamation. Reginger, bishop of Lucca,
introduced the subject of Anselm's wrongs in an indignant speech, to which he
added emphasis by striking the floor with his pastoral staff; and it was with
difficulty that the pope prevailed on him to desist, while Anselm, to whom the
mention of his case was unexpected, took no part in the scene. It was, however,
now evident to him that he could not expect any strenuous assistance from
Urban, and he withdrew to Lyons, where for a year and a half he was entertained
with the greatest honour by archbishop Hugh. During this residence at Lyons he
was informed of the pope's death, in July 1099, and of William's mysterious and
awful end, in August 1100.
Henry I, at his coronation, promised to redress the
grievances in the church and in the civil administration from which his
subjects had suffered during the late reign. Flambard, who had succeeded
William of St. Calais as bishop of Durham, was committed to the Tower. The king
resolved to fill up the vacant bishoprics and abbeys; he urgently invited
Anselm to return, and, on his arrival, apologized for having been crowned in
the primate's absence. But a subject of difference soon arose.
The custom of investiture and homage, which were
regarded as inseparable, was so firmly settled in England, that Anselm,
notwithstanding his lofty ecclesiastical principles, had without scruple
submitted to it at his elevation to the primacy. But when he was now required
to repeat his engagements, in acknowledgment of the new sovereign, he answered
that it was forbidden by the Roman council which he had lately attended. He
declared that, although the objection to the ceremony was not his own, he held
himself bound to maintain the council’s decrees, and that, if the king would
not admit them, he could not communicate with him or remain in England. He
suggested, however, that Henry might ask the pope to dispense with the
enforcement of them in his dominions. A truce until Easter was agreed on, and,
soon after it had expired, the king received an answer to a letter which he had
written to the pope. In this answer Paschal dwelt on the distinction between
ecclesiastical and secular power, but without touching the question whether
investiture and homage were really an invasion of the church's spiritual
rights.
The king found it necessary to temporise. He feared
the influence of his brother Robert, who had returned from the east, adding to
the charm of his popular manners the fame of a brave warrior who had borne a
conspicuous share in the delivery of the holy sepulchre from the infidels.
Henry, therefore, could not afford to alienate the clergy, while he was
unwilling to give up so important a part of his prerogative as that which was
now assailed. The nobles in general were opposed to the ecclesiastical claim, and
the bishops joined them in declaring that, rather than yield the national
rights, they would expel the primate from the realm, and renounce their
connexion with Rome. Gerard, archbishop of York, Herbert of Norwich, and Robert
of Coventry, were sent to Rome on the part of the king; Baldwin and another
monk on that of Anselm. The bishops were charged with a letter, in which Henry,
while professing his desire to respect the pope as his predecessors had done,
declared himself resolved to uphold the rights of his crown; if, he said, he
were to abase himself by suffering them to be diminished, neither his nobles
nor his people would endure it; and he desired Paschal to choose between a
relaxation of the decrees and a loss of England from his obedience.
In answer to the solicitations of the bishops, the
pope declared that, even to save his life, he would not recede from the
decrees; he wrote to the king that his treatment of the church was as if an
unnatural son should reduce his mother to bondage; and he addressed to Anselm a
letter of commendation and encouragements The bishops, however, who brought
back the letter for Henry, professed to have been verbally assured by the pope
that, if the king would in other respects discharge his duties well, he should
not be troubled on the subject of investiture. The archbishop’s envoys said
that they had received no such communication : but the bishops rejoined that it
had been made in secret; that the pope would not commit it to writing, lest it
should come to the knowledge of other princes, who might thereupon claim a like
allowance. A vehement dispute followed. Baldwin indignantly insisted that he
and his companion ought to be believed, supported as they were by the pope’s
letters. It was replied that the word of an archbishop and two bishops ought to
outweigh that of two monklings, who by their very profession were disqualified
for bearing witness in secular courts; that it was far superior to sheepskins
bescribbled with ink, and with a lump of lead appended to them : to which
Baldwin rejoined that the question was not secular but spiritual. A fresh
reference was made to Rome, for the purpose of ascertaining the pope's real
sentiments, and in the meantime Anselm agreed that he would not suspend
communion with the king, or with those who were invested by him. But he refused
to consecrate some clergy of the court who were nominated to bishoprics; and,
although the archbishop of York was willing to take the chief part in the rite,
two of the nominees declined to receive consecration on such terms
At Michaelmas 1102, a council was held at London, and,
by Anselm’s desire, it was attended by the nobles of the realm, in order to add
force to its decisions. A number of abbots were deprived for simony or other
irregularities; the obligation of celibacy was now for the first time extended
to the parochial clergy of England; and the other canons bear sad evidence to
the condition into which religion, discipline, and morality had sunk under the
misgovernment of William Rufus. The enforcement of celibacy met with strong
opposition, especially in the province of York, where many of the priests
preferred the alternative of shutting their church-doors, and giving up the
performance of all Divine service. The king and the archbishop received answers
from the pope; but Henry refused to make known the contents of that which was
addressed to him, and Anselm refrained for a time from opening the other, lest
it should involve him in fresh difficulties. The king made an opportunity of
visiting him at Canterbury, and proposed that the archbishop should himself go
to Rome with a view of obtaining a relaxation of the decrees. Anselm replied
that, although old and infirm, he was willing to undertake the journey, but
that he would not do anything to the injury of the church, or to his own
discredit; whereupon he was assured that he would only be expected to confirm
the evidence of the king's own envoys as to the state of English affairs.
The archbishop set out, and, on arriving at Bec,
opened the pope’s letter, by which he found that Paschal solemnly disavowed the
words imputed to him by Henry's late envoys, and placed the three prelates
under censure until they should make satisfaction. After a journey in which
honours everywhere waited on him, he reached Rome, where about the same time
William of Warelwast arrived as representative of the king. At an audience of
the pope, the envoy declared that his master would rather lose his crown than
abandon the right of investiture. Paschal replied that he himself would die
rather than yield up his claim; but, by way of conciliation, he confirmed in
some other points the usages which had been introduced by William the
Conqueror. Anselm soon discovered that his opponents were employing the
pecuniary arguments which were generally successful at Rome; and, after having
received the papal blessing, with a vague confirmation of the privileges of his
see, he again withdrew to the hospitality of Hugh of Lyons, who, since his
former visit, had performed the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On the way he was
overtaken by William of Warelwast, who travelled for some time in his company,
and at parting told him that the king would gladly see him back, if the
archbishop would do as his predecessors had done to the crown. Anselm
considered this as forbidding his return, unless he would agree to terms which
the late Roman canons had rendered impossible; and he wrote from Lyons to warn
the king that on him must be the guilt of any mischiefs which might follow.
Henry committed the property of the archbishopric to the care of two of
Anselm’s retainers, who, as would appear from a hint of Edmer, did not exercise
their stewardship very faithfully. He repeatedly desired the primate to return,
but without offering any mitigation of his conditions; while Anselm, in answer
to letters from some of the clergy, who urged him to redress the disorders of
the church, steadily declared that he could not return unless the king would
make concessions. The archbishop attempted by frequent messages to urge the
pope to a more decided course; but although he prevailed on Paschal to
excommunicate the Norman counsellors who had maintained the principle of
investiture, and the ecclesiastics who accepted it, no sentence was uttered
against the king himself. At length Anselm resolved to take further steps on
his own responsibility. In the spring of 1105, he visited Henry's sister, the
countess of Blois, and told her that he was about to excommunicate the king.
The countess was greatly alarmed by this information, as such a sentence might
have dangerous effects at a time when Henry was at war with his brother Robert,
and when his subjects were discontented on account of its cost. She therefore
earnestly endeavoured to mediate between the king and the archbishop, and
succeeded in bringing them to a conference at the castle of L'Aigle in
Normandy, on the eve of St. Mary Magdalen (July 21). But although at this
meeting Henry professed himself willing to give up the revenues of Canterbury,
the question of homage and investiture was still a bar to reconciliation; and
again a reference to Rome was necessary.
Many of the English clergy had taken advantage of the
primate's absence to defy the late canons as to celibacy, and Henry conceived
the idea of turning their irregularities to profit by imposing a fine on them.
As, however, the produce of this measure fell short of his expectations and of
his necessities, he proceeded to levy a fine on every parish-church, holding
the incumbents answerable for the payment. It was in vain that two hundred of
the clergy, arrayed in their robes of ministration, waited on him with a
petition for relief; and Anselm found himself obliged to address to the king a
remonstrance against his usurpation of ecclesiastical discipline. The primate
received fresh letters, detailing the increased confusion which prevailed among
his flock, and earnestly entreating him to return. Gerard of York, and other
prelates who had formerly been his opponents, now wrote to acknowledge their
error, and declared themselves ready not only to follow but to go before him in
the endeavour to heal the wounds of the church.
At length William of Warelwast and Baldwin, who had
been sent to Rome as representatives of the king and of the archbishop
respectively, returned with the proposal of a compromise—that the king should
forego investiture, but that, until he should come to a better mind, bishops
and abbots should be permitted to do homage, while those who had been invested
by him were to be admitted to communion on such terms as the two envoys should
agree on. These conditions were ratified at Bec on the 25th of August 1106, when
the king promised to restore to Anselm the profits of the see during his
absence, to abstain from the revenues of vacant bishoprics and abbeys, and to
remit all fines to the clergy. The victory over Robert at Tenchebray, on the
28th of September, was regarded by many as a blessing on the peace which had
been concluded with the church.
Anselm was received in England with enthusiasm. The
queen, “Maud the Good”, who had always regarded him with the highest reverence
and had corresponded with him in his exile, went before him from stage to
stage, to direct the preparations for his entertainment. He soon after joined
with the archbishop of York in consecrating five bishops, among whom were his
old antagonist William of Warelwast and the two who had refused to be
consecrated in the primate’s absence.
A council was held at Westminster in 1107, when the
king formally relinquished the privilege of investiture, and the archbishop
promised to tolerate the ceremony of homage, notwithstanding the condemnation
which Urban had pronounced against it. The king had conceded, and Anselm was
congratulated by his correspondents as victorious; yet in truth Henry, by
giving up an indifferent formality, was able to retain the old relations of the
crown with the hierarchy, and even the nomination of bishops. At this council,
and at one held in the following year, the canons against the marriage of
ecclesiastics were renewed with great strictness; but the pope consented for a
time that the sons of clergymen might be admitted to orders, on the remarkable
ground that “almost the greater and the better part of the English clergy” were
derived from this class.
During the short remainder of his life, Anselm enjoyed
the friendship and respect of Henry. Notwithstanding his growing infirmity, he
continued to write on theological and philosophical subjects; on his death-bed
he expressed a wish that he might be permitted to live until he had solved a
question as to the origin of the soul—because he feared that no other person
would be able to give a right solution. After his death, which took place in
April 1109, the primacy was allowed to remain vacant until 1114, when it was
conferred on Ralph, bishop of Rochester, who had administered its affairs
during the interval.
