He had no creative power; nothing imaginative comes from his hand, but he had an affection for imaginative work. Some have traced in his work that he had read the poets, and he was always play-' ing at poetry in his prose. Not original in thought, he had a gentle eagerness in writing; he had warmth and moral dignity. His charity, his affectionate friendship, his tact, his practiced skill in the affairs of men, appear in all his books and letters. He possessed the excellent power of putting into popular form the thoughts of other men, and of epitomising good books. He gathered together, absorbed, and well expressed the learning of his time; he had a strong sense of the duty of communicating it in English to the people, and he passed all the years of his manhood in teaching and writing. And as Ælfred was the creator of the elder, so Ælfric was of the younger AngloSaxon prose.-BROOKE, STOPFORD A., 1898, English Literature from the Beginning to the Norman Conquest, p. 279. When judged fairly according to the conditions of his time, he stands forth an eminent man among the Old English. But his chief excellence is not to be sought in special learnedness, nor in the distinguished place assigned him in relation to traditional Catholicism. Rather it is to be found in the fidelity with which he devoted whatever learning his opportunities enabled him to acquire to the 'education of the people, adapting to their needs his whole thought and activity. . . . As an author, considered in the general sense of that term, we cannot rank him with those who have promoted the development of knowledge. He belonged to an age in which there was almost no struggle for the formulation of doctrine, and in which all learning languished. His aim was chiefly a practical one; his writings were to serve the church of his time, and were called forth by pressing needs. The literary aspect of our author is attractive in its noble simplicity, clearness and vigor of expression. He was the most efficient of the writers of his time; none before him had written such urgent, impressive reproofs to the shepherds of the people; none had attained to such dignity, fullness, and power of discourse. It was reserved for him to establish the reformatory movement among the English, and to gather its fruits. His fame is to be compared with that of an Aldhelm in an earlier time, and with that of a Wyclif in a later riper age.-WHITE, CAROLINE LOUISA, 1898, Ælfric, A New Study of his Life and Writings, pp. 71, 83, 84, 87. Lanfranc 1005?-1089 Archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Pavia about 1005, and educated for the law. About 1039 he founded a school at Avranches, in 1041 became a Benedictine at Bec, and in 1046 was chosen prior. He contended against Berengarius in the controversy as to the real presence. He at first condemned the marriage of William of Normandy with his cousin, but in 1059 went to Rome to procure the papal dispensation; and in 1062 William made him prior of St. Stephen's Abbey at Caen, and in 1070 Archbishop of Canterbury. He died 24th May 1089. His chief writings are Commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul, a Treatise against Berengar, and Sermons. PATRICK AND GROOME, eds., 1897, Chambers's Biographical Dictionary, p. 569. A man of unbounded learning, master of the liberal arts, and of both sacred and secular literature, and of the greatest prudence in counsel and the administration of worldly affairs. FLORENCE OF WORCESTER, C 1118, Chronicle, tr. Forester, (A. D. 1070), p. 175. To understand the admirable genius and erudition of Lanfranc, one ought to be an Herodian in grammar, an Aristotle in dialectics, a Tully in rhetoric, an Augustine and Jerome, and other expositors of the law and grace, in the sacred scriptures. Athens itself, in its most flourishing state, renowned for the excellency of its teaching, would have honoured Lanfranc in every branch of eloquence and discipline, and would have desired to receive instruction from his wise maxims. -ORDERICUS VITALIS, 1141, The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, tr. Forester, vol. II, bk. iv, ch. vii. A man worthy to be compared to the ancients, in knowledge, and in religion: of whom it may be truly said, "Cato the third is descended from heaven;" so much had an heavenly savour tinctured his heart and tongue; so much was the whole Western world excited to the knowledge of the liberal arts, by his learning; and so earnestly did the monastic profession labour in the work of religion, either from his example, or authority.-WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY, c1142, Chronicle of the Kings of England, bk. III, tr. Sharpe. A. D. 1089. Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, died on the twenty-fourth of March, who had restored the large church in Canterbury, and all its offices. He procured many additional dignities for that church; he restored its manors, he established two receiving houses for strangers, by condemning heresies he confirmed the faith, he restored the church at Rochester; he diligently corrected, by a comparison with the ancient copies, the books which the rude simplicity of the English had corrupted; in the confirmation of which the church delights to feel itself strengthened.-MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER, c1307, The Flowers of History, tr. Yonge, vol. II, ch. ii. His contemporaries, who extol the learning of Lanfranc in hyperbolical terms, do so in very indifferent Latin of their own; but it appears indeed more than doubtful, whether the earliest of them meant to praise him for this peculiar species of literature. The Benedictines of St. Maur cannot find much to say for him in this respect. They allege that he and Anselm wrote better than was then usual, a very moderate compliment; moderate compliment; yet they ascribe a great influence to their public lectures, and to the schools which were formed on the model of Bec: and perhaps we could not, without injustice, deprive Lanfranc of the credit he has obtained for the promotion of polite letters. There is at least sufficient evidence that they had begun to revive in France not long after his time.-HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. i, ch. i, par. 79. Though the name of Lanfranc has descended to us almost without reproach, we feel bound to say that his worldly wisdom seems to have been greatly in advance of his piety; and that the facts of his history, as a whole, force upon us the impression, that he could descend to artifice, not to say craft, to accomplish his purpose, and that his inordinate ambition is as little to be doubted as his knowledge and sagacity.-VAUGHAN, ROBERT, 185965, Revolutions in English History, vol. 1, p. 381. . An Archbishop of Canterbury was something more than merely the first of English bishops. Setting aside his loftier ecclesiastical claims as the second Pontiff of a second world, he held within the realm of England itself a position which was wholly his own. Lanfranc stood by the side of William, as Dunstan had stood by the side of Eadgar. In every gathering of the Church and of the people, in every synod, in every gemot, the Archbishop of Canterbury held a place which had no equal or second, a place which was shared by no other bishop or earl or ætheling. If we reckon the King as the head of the assembly, the Archbishop is its first member. If we reckon the King as a power outside the assembly, the Archbishop is himself its head. He is the personal counsellor of the King, the personal leader of the nation, in a way in which no other man in the realm could be said to be.-FREEMAN, EDWARD A., 1882, The Reign of William Rufus and the Accession of Henry the First, vol. 1, pp. 257, 358. His writings show less of the rudeness of the age in which he wrote, and more order, precision, and ease, than the other productions of the eleventh century. He displays a great knowledge of Holy Scripture, of tradition, and of canon law. JENKINS, O. L., 1876, The Student's Handbook of British and American Literature, 53. p. He is styled saint in the "Benedictine Martyrology," and there were pictures of him in the abbey churches of Caen and Bec; as, however, he had no commemorative office, he should perhaps be styled "Beatus" rather than "Sanctus. Although a large part of his life was spent in transacting ecclesiastical and civil affairs, he never lost the habits and tastes which he had acquired at Bec; he remained a devout man, constant in the discharge of his religious duties. Strenous in all things, far-seeing and wise, resolute in purpose, stern towards those who persisted in opposing his policy, and not over-scrupulous as to the justice of the means which he employed in carrying it out, or the sufferings which it entailed on others, he was in many respects like his master and friend, William the Conqueror, and men looked on the king and the archbishop as well matched in strength of character (Brevis Relatio, p. 10). Lanfranc there was, moreover, the subtlety of the Italian lawyer, and his In power of drawing distinctions, the quickness of his perception, and the acuteness of his intellect must have rendered him vastly superior to the churchmen and nobles of the court. Combined with these traits were others more suited to his profession, for he was humble, munificent, and, when no question of policy was concerned, gentle and considerate towards all.-HUNT, REV. WILLIAM, 1892, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXXII, p. 88. Anselm Born in or near Aosta, in Piedmont, in 1033; 1060, pupil of Lanfranc, and an inmate of the abbey of Bec in Normandy; 1063, chosen prior; 1078, abbot; 1093, Archbishop of Canterbury; 1109, died April 21; buried next to Lanfranc at Canterbury. Wrote "Monologion," "Proslogion," "Cur Deus Homo." His "Meditations" and "Letters" have also come down to us.-MOULTON, CHARLES WELLS, 1900. He was a second Augustin; superior to those of his age in the acuteness of his understanding and powers of logic; and equal to the most illustrious men of his day for virtue and piety.-TENNEMANN, WILHELM GOTTLIEB, 1812, A Manual of the History of Philosophy, tr. Johnson, p. 217. The man who exerted the most important influence on the theological and philosophical turn of the twelfth century. In Anselm, we see the different main directions of the spirit that actuated his times harmoniously combined; but the spiritual elements that were blended together in him became separated in the progress of the spiritual life of this period, and proceeded to antagonisms, which belong amongst the most significant appearances of the twelfth century.—NEANDER, AUGUSTUS, 1825-52, General History of the Christian Religion and Church, tr. Torrey, vol. VIII, pp. 10, 23. Anselm was equal to Lanfranc in learning, and far exceeded him in piety. In his private life he was modest, humble, and sober in the extreme. He was obstinate only in defending the interests of the church of Rome, and, however we may judge the claims themselves, we must acknowledge that he supported them from conscientious motives. Reading and contemplation were the favourite occupations of his life, and even the time required for his meals, which were extremely frugal, he employed in discussing philosophical and theological questions. By his rare genius he did much towards bringing metaphysics into repute. He laid the foundation of a new school of theology, which was free from the servile character of the older writers, who did little more than collect together a heap of authorities. on the subjects which they treated. Monologium and the Proslogium are admirable specimens of abstract reasoning. His reading was extensive, and his style is clear and vigorous.-WRIGHT, THOMAS, 1846, Biographia Britannica Literaria, vol. II, p. 59. The Scholasticism, of which Anselm was the first representative, freed the church from the yoke of royalty, but only to chain it to the Papal chair.-D'AUBIGNE, J. H. MERLE, 1853, History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, tr. White, vol. v, bk. xvii, ch. v. In what lively colours does the prelate's last wish, his regret at being unable to finish a philosophical work, paint for us the active mind and firm will of the immortal philosopher! History offers no other example of a man sharing in such violent and multiplied contests, yet remaining throughout devoted to such metaphysical speculations as seem to require an undisturbed mind and a life of external calm. Amidst so much commotion and trouble, Anselm carried on side by side his theological and philosophical researches, and a correspondence of immense extent. In such a man no doubt the uprightness and simplicity of his soul doubled the powers of his intellect. His range of thought was as wide as his courage was invincible. Care for the good of individual souls was as powerful with him as his ardent zeal for the interests of the universal Church. Amidst the deepest tribulations of all kinds, Anselm guided with most scrupulous attention the conduct of his sister, his brother-in-law, and of his nephew whom he had the happiness of drawing into the cloister. With that tenderness of heart which was a secret of his time, he was neither limited to the narrow sphere of family life nor the wider one of a special church. He governed the consciences of a vast number of pious women, monks, and foreigners.-MONTALEMBERT, CHARLES FORBES, 1860-68, The Monks of the West, vol. VII, p. 284. It is no disparagement to the powerful a priori arguments that have characterized modern Protestant theology, to say, that the argument from the necessary nature of the Deity, is unfolded in these tracts of Anselm with a depth of reflection, and a subtlety of metaphysical acumen, that places them among the finest pieces of Christian speculation. . . . Anselm is the first instance in which the theologian plants himself upon the position of philosophy, and challenges for the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction, both a rational necessity, and a scientific rationality. SHEDD, WILLIAM G. T., 1863, A History of Christian Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 231, vol. II, p. 275. Later centuries have cast down the whole structure that Anselm and the men of his day laboriously built up. But thought and nobleness of character are longer-lived than the causes which they consecrate; and it can hardly be fanciful to associate the peculiar virtues of the Anglican Church, sobriety of tone and independence of popular clamour, with the example of severe reason and fearless love of truth in the greatest of mediæval primates. Anselm as a thinker may be placed by the side of Kant.. . The philosophy of Anselm is, in a certain sense, the key-note to all mediæval literature. -PEARSON, CHARLES H., 1867, History of England During the Early and Middle Ages, vol. 1, pp. 463, 608, 609. He died, leaving a name equally illustrious as a scholar and as a divine. -WILLIAMS, FOLKESTONE, 1868, Lives of the English Cardinals, vol. 1, p. 61. St. Anselm, one of the most remarkable men and most attractive characters, not only of the Middle Ages but of the whole Christian history. Anselm's character, has joined his name at once with those who had stood for truth in the face of kings and multitudes, and with one who was the type of the teachers of children in the first steps of knowledge: the masters of thought and language in its highest uses and its humblest forms; with the seer whose parable rebuked King David; with the preacher who thundered against Antioch and Constantinople; with the once famous grammarian, St. Jerome's master, from whom the Middle Age schools learnt the elementary laws which govern human speech, and out of whose book of rudiments Anselm had doubtless taught his pupils at Bec: "Nathan the seer, the metropolitan John Chrysostom, Anselm, and he whose hands Donatus-deigned the primer's help to plan." It is his right place:-in the noble company of the strong and meek, who have not been afraid of the mightiest, and have not disdained to work for and with the lowliest capable of the highest things; content, as living before Him with whom there is neither high nor low, to minister in the humblest.-CHURCH, R. W., 1870, Saint Anselm, pp. 6, 303. The moral of the life of Anselm is the immortality there is in thought. Anselm the monk would long since have been forgotten with the multitude of other monks who said their quiet prayers in a thousand monasteries during the eleventh century. Anselm the Archbishop and Statesman might have been remembered longer, but only by historians and students of the by-ways of history. But Anselm the Thinker, who succeeded in thinking. out a new theological argument and a new form of Christian doctrine, will have a name forever among the leaders of human opinion. His theory of the Atonement, mutilated, indeed, and dilapidated, is, nevertheless, still preached in numerous pulpits by honest men who think they have found it in the Bible, not knowing that it came to them from the brain of an Italian monk meditating by the Seine. some centuries ago. CLARKE, JAMES FREEMAN, 1881, Events and Epochs in Religious History, p. 156. It was not only in the church which was one day to be his own, or among men of his own order only, that Anselm made friends in England. He made a kind of progress through the land, being welcomed everywhere, as well in the courts of nobies as in the houses of monks, nuns, and canons. Everywhere he scattered the good seed of his teaching, speaking to all according to their several callings, to men and women, married and unmarried, monks, clerks, laymen, making himself, as far as was lawful, all things to all men. Scholar and theologian as Anselm was, his teaching was specially popular; he did not affect the grand style, but dealt largely in parables and instances which were easy to be understood. The laity therefore flocked eagerly to hear him, and every man rejoiced who could win the privilege of personal speech with the new apostle. FREEMAN, EDWARD A., 1882, The Reign of William Rufus and the Accession of Henry the First, vol. I, p. 378. Writers with nothing else in common have been equally attracted by Anselm. To the student of ecclesiastical biography he is one of the most perfect examples of the piety of the cloister-a piety which retains a charm even for those who have rejected all the ideas that gave it birth. Hegel and Cousin found in Anselm a mediæval Descartes who spoke the first word of modern philosophy amid the litanies of the Middle Ages. The student of the constitutional history of England finds Anselm's career to be of the first importance; for during the reign of William Rufus, and during part of that of Henry Beauclerc, Anselm, like Laud in the reign of Charles I., is in reality, as well as in name, the second personage in the realm. To those who care for the honour of the Church of England the name of Anselm is, or ought to be, precious, for in him they have an archbishop who was never timorous either in thought or in action. With his name, if with no other, they can answer the taunt, "Episcopi Anglicani semper pavidi."-GIBB, JOHN, 1883, The Life and Times of St. Anselm, British Quarterly Review, vol. 78, p. 265. was a true scholar of the Platonic and Augustinian school; not a dialectician like Albertus Magnus and Abélard, but a man who went beyond words to things, and seized on realities rather than forms; not given to disputations and the sports. of logical tournaments, but to solid inquiries after truth. The universities had not then arisen, but a hundred years later he would have been their ornament, like Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura.LORD, JOHN, 1884, Beacon Lights of History, vol. II, pp. 213, 214. If his philosophical treatises exhibit the profundity, the daring originality, and masterly grasp of his intellect, his meditations and prayers reveal the spiritual side of his nature, the deep humility of his faith, and the fervour of his love towards God, while his letters show him in his more human aspect -- his tender sympathy and affection, his courtesy and respectfulness, combined with firmness in maintaining what he believed to be right, and in reproving what he believed to be wrong. Thus his writings completely verify the statement of William of Maimesbury that he was thoroughly spiritual and industriously learned-"penitus sanctus, anxie doctus."-STEPHENS, W. R. W., 1885, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. II, p. 29. In him the two elements the speculative and logical tendency on the one hand, and the devout and contemplative on the other are so evenly balanced and so thoroughly commingled that he fulfils the ideal of the scholastic theologian.FISHER, GEORGE PARK, 1887, History of the Christian Church, p. 212. Though Anselm was thus early invested with the aureole of the saint, the process preliminary to his canonisation, committed to the care of Becket by Alexander III. in |