the interests of his cloister. Every one showed some zeal in giving it as sistance. Even King William, the Conqueror-that otherwise terrible potentate, was numbered among its patrons, and the Popes of that day showed him special favors :-Urban II., for example, exempted him from Episcopal supervision. Anselm had been acting as Abbot in charge of the cloister for fifteen years (1078-1093), having previously served also fifteen years (1063-1078) as Prior of the same, and it had attained a wonderful degree of prosperity. Herluin, in his forty years of control, had added one hundred and thirty-six monks, while Anselm had added one hundred and eighty in fifteen years. It was looked upon as the model cloister on both sides of the Channel, and had sent forth spiritual colonies in various directions, and Episcopal and arch-Episcopal chairs had been filled from it.

The circumstances attending Anselm's removal, in 1093, from the cloister, were as follows: The cloister having several estates in England, Anselm was obliged to travel thither frequently, and he soon won the hearts of all. The arch-Episcopal chair of Canterbury had been vacant since 1089, and its re-occupation was so much the more necessary since William Rufus, successor of William, the Conqueror, since 1087, was sorely oppressing the English Church. Assistance could only be expected through a Primate of great energy, and hence all those who had the welfare of the Church at heart, had been directing their eyes for some time towards Anselm. But, heretofore, William Rufus was indisposed to have the vacant chair filled, inasmuch as he received its revenues during the vacancy. About the end of the year 1092, as though in derision, he allowed an appeal to God to fill the vacant chair, that is that prayer should be offered. up to this end; but he labored to keep the whole in his own hands. But in February, 1093, he became seriously ill, and, in the anguish of death, he promised to give a shepherd to the principal and mother Church of the land. Fortunately, Anselm happened just then to be in the neighborhood of the royal sick-bed. Immediately he was summoned, and it was proposed to the King to give the shepherd's staff to Anselm. In vain he struggled against it; the crozier was forced upon him, regardless of his remonstrances. Anselm was forced to yield to the general call, although he clearly perceived that the most trying struggles awaited him, since he felt himself obliged to consider the re-establishment of the freedom of the Church as the first duty devolved upon him by his new office.

Indeed these conflicts began shortly after his consecration, September 25th, 1093. The King had hardly recovered his health before he resumed his old tone of feeling, treating the Church in the basest manner, because he looked upon it as a means of filling his ever-empty treasury. "The bread of Christ is the bread of fatness," he used to say, and “the Crown has lost half its revenue by the Church; and why shouldn't I obtain compensation for this loss?" He was angered at the new archbishop, because the latter sent him as tribute a sum (five hundred pounds of silver) which the king considered much too small, nor could he be moved by threats to increase it. The King had treated the other episcopates and abbacies, in like manner with his treatment of the arch-episcopate of Canterbury, and whenever they became vacant he prevented their being filled so that he might enjoy their incomes. Anselm demanded that these offices should be filled, and insisted upon the assembling of a General Synod to

take measures against the lawless decay of morals, which had been gaining ground. The King peremptorily refused both, and Anselm was determined to appeal to the Pope, with the view of succeeding through his authority: the King tried to deprive him of this recourse, inasmuch as the schism which had arisen on account of the elevation of a rival Pope by the Emperor, Henry IV., in the year 1080, gave him an opportunity of declaring who should be considered as the legitimate Pope in England. The King, up to this period, had declared for neither of the two Popes, in order to act as he might please without any control from the Church; while Anselm had held, from the very first, to Urban II. Finally (1095) the King was brought to a recognition of this Pope, and all the intrigues that he had carried on against Anselm were frustrated. Nevertheless, the measures of reform, that were projected by Anselm, were not carried out. At first the occupation of Normandy, which, after the death of William the Conqueror, had fallen to his eldest son (Robert III.), who placed it for three years in charge of his younger brother-the King of England-so that he might take a part in the first Crusade,—the occupation of Normandy served the King as a pretext to postpone Anselm's plans; and afterwards, when he returned to England (1097), there was a sedition to be suppressed in Valais. When this was ended, every one hoped that the King would give ear to the Archbishop. But, on the other hand, he threatened him with a prosecution on account of the pretended bad conduct of the troops sent by the archbishopric to the war. In short, the King absolutely refused the Archbishop an audience, and Anselm then resolved, since the Pope was now again recognized in England, to see him in person, so as to secure his intervention in the matter. The King, however, declared that he considered Anselm deposed, and the archbishopric again vacant. But Anselm preferred to sacrifice worldly goods rather than the dignity and liberty of the Church, wherefore he set out on his journey, November, 1017. He was taken sick at Lyons, and only reached Rome in May, 1018. Here he was received with much honor by the Pope, who forwarded immediately a letter to the King, demanding full freedom of action for Anselm. An answer to this could not be expected for some time, and the Pope therefore requested Anselm to remain in the mean time in the neighborhood, with the view of ascertaining the result of the letter. On account of the intense heat in Rome, Anselm accepted the invitation of a former Beccenser, the Abbot John of St. Salvator, in Telesi, who gave him a property of the cloister called Sclavia, which had a high and airy situation, and possessed a widely-extended view of Campagna felice, as his residence. In this charming solitude he passed the summer of 1098, and completed one of his most celebrated works, which was devoted to the explanation of the most difficult question that can be propounded to faith, viz.: the question Cur deus homo? During his residence he descended to the plain but once, when the Norman princes in Lower Italy, who were then besieging rebellious Capua, desired to form his acquaintance. He made them a visit in the midst of their camp, and created a deep impression upon the Saracens of Duke Roger of Sicily. In October he accompanied the Pope to a Council at Bari, where, chiefly through his influence the Latin doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit was victorious over the Greek doctrine. He returned with the Pope to Rome, and there at last received the King's answer to the Pope's letter. It read like a refusal, whereupon the Pope

threatened the King with excommunication in case he did not reinstate the Archbishop of Canterbury in his See by Michaelmas Day, 1099. But, in the mean time, Urban II. died (July 29, 1099), and his successor, Pascal II., was not willing to renew the contest with the English crown, at the very commencement of his Pontificate. Moreover, Anselm had left Rome about the end of April, 1099, and found à home with an old friend, Archbishop Hugo, of Lyons. During the following year 1100, the King was killed (during a hunt in the New Forest near Winchester); Henry I., his younger brother, who succeeded him, immediately recalled the Archbishop from exile, and promised a removal of all existing abuses. Nevertheless, he also quarrelled with Anselm, because the latter, in accordance with a decree of the Roman Synod-which he had attended in April, 1099-forbidding the reception of a spiritual, office from the hands of the laity as well as the administration of oaths to the clergy by the laity, refused to be invested in his office by the King and to take the usual oath of allegiance to the same, although he stood firm by the King when Duke Robert (III.) returned from the East in September, 1100, and claimed the succession to the throne of England. Whilst all the barons were disposed to desert to Robert III., Anselm held with all his might for Henry I. But he would not be recognized as a vassal of the King, because such a relation would seem to conflict with the freedom of Church government, whilst, on the other hand, the King considered the security of the temporal power imperilled, unless the clergy stood in a dependent relation to him. Towards the end of the year 1100, Henry sent one of his confidential attendants to Rome, to secure, if possible, some alteration of this Synodal decree, and when this one returned, without having accomplished his object, at Easter, 1101, it was resolved, on the part of the government, to dispatch a second embassy to the Pope, which should repeat the same demands in the most urgent manner. At its return in May, 1102, it was found that the Pope's letter differed from the message which had been orally given by him. Whilst this, in fact, absolutely denied to the King the right of investiture of Church dignitaries, yet Pascal II. had orally expressed the opinion that the King might always exercise such right, if he would only bestow offices upon proper persons. With such contradictory opinions a third embassy was sent to Rome, and it returned in March, 1103, with a confirmation of the former written answer; but the King still was unwilling to lay aside his rights, and imposed upon Anselm himself a journey to Rome, to procure a more favorable decision. The circumstances were such that one might be allowed simply to present the facts of the case to the Pope, refraining from exercising any influence on the Papal decision, and Anselm determined upon such a plan of operations during his journey, although he very well knew that it would simply insure his banishment. And this was soon shown to be the special object. For when the Pope persevered in refusing the King the right of investiture, then the royal ambassador, who had accompanied Anselm to Rome, announced that his master would not suffer the latter to return to England. Once more Anselm was obliged to take refuge in a foreign country, finding it with his friend, the Archbishop of Lyons. In vain he strove to change the sentiments of the King by letter from this retreat: after the third letter the correspondence was broken off. But he awaited an interference on the part of the Pope also in vain. It is true that Pascal excommuni

cated the Bishops, who had suffered themselves to be invested by kings, as well as the King's counsellors, by a Lateran Council held about the beginning of 1105; but he delayed action from time to time against the King, because he continued to send embassadors to him. After eighteen months had passed in this way, Anselm determined to employ extreme measures to end the whole difficulty. In May, 1105, he betook himself to the neighborhood of Normandy, where the King (being at war with his brother Robert) was then staying, to pronounce excommunication upon him. Having communicated his intention to a sister of the King-the Countess Adele von Blois, an old patroness of the Cloister of Bec, she hastened to communicate it to her brother. The King was not willing to be brought to such an ultimatum. He agreed to a meeting with Anselm (in the Castle L'Aigle) in July, 1105, and announced himself as ready to renounce the right of investiture, if he would only recognize the feudal oath. Anselm, however, was not disposed to grant this: the Pope, who had been selected as arbitrator, took sides with the King, and Anselm'was obliged to yield. At a second conference, held at Bec, in August, 1106, all the other points of dispute were settled; and, amid general rejoicing, Anselm returned to England. The best understanding was then existing between him and the King. Henry agreed to all the measures proposed by Anselm; indeed he nominated him once as Regent, when he was compelled to be absent from England for a long time. The Church was once more high in honor, and the struggle that was then every where carried on between it and the State had, at least in England, found its first peaceable solution.

As there was external freedom, so there was within unity of ecclesiastical government, to the restoration of which Anselm devoted himself most zealously. By his firmness he was able, indeed, to bring back the English Bishops, who had endeavored, under William Rufus, to make themselves as independent as possible, to a proper relation of subordination to the Chair of Canterbury; and even compelled the Archbishop of York to do the same.

But the strengthening of ecclesiastical power, either as regards its relation to the State, or in the management of its own internal affairs, was only as means for an end. For what lay most at his heart was the restoration of Christian morals and discipline throughout the land. Wherefore, from the beginning, he insisted with so much zeal upon the invocation of a General Synod, because it alone could enact general disciplinary measures. He had the pleasure of having such a synod organized under Henry I. in 1102, and another afterwards in 1108. A series of vigorous resolutions was adopted; the clergy were reminded of their spiritual calling; the riotous habits of the laity which, especially in the form of sensuality, and among the Normans, had attained a fearful magnitude, were treated with the sternest punishments. But Anselm very well knew, that not a great deal could be accomplished with these disciplinary means, unless the ruling sentiment should be improved, and, since only practical example, through direct models, could produce any effect on it, he directed his chief care towards the reformation of the English cloisters. In his opinion these should be sources of light and life, exhibiting Christian piety in its most perfect form, and, fashioning and training through such exhibition, react upon the world. He paid the greatest possible attention

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to the cloisters, not only seeking to secure well-qualified principals for them, but taking a direct interest himself in the management of their inner life, and directing them pastoral letters from time to time, full of paternal exhortations, warnings, counsels, &c.

With the same heart-felt faithfulness that he showed as Primate of the whole English Church (and the Primacy of Canterbury then extended over Ireland, Scotland, and the neighboring islands), he cared for the Diocese over which he more immediately presided, viz., that of Kent. He was always engaged in tours of visitation, to examine the condition of affairs in separate parishes, and to regulate necessary alterations in the most exact manner. His principal activity was shown towards the Cloister, which was united with the Cathedral and was the training school for the Clergy of the Diocese, whilst the elder members constituted the Archbishop's Chapter. In this Cloister he reproduced that of Bec; here he "took breath," when he was worn down with the temporal duties which the administration of the affairs of the archiepiscopate imposed. There was no want of these, and they constituted the most burdensome that his office imposed upon him, so that he was accustomed to say, at times, "that he would rather be a boy in the Cloister, trembling before the rod of his master, than an occupant of an Episcopal chair." Hence it was recreation for him when he joined the young in the Cloister, or could, indeed, withdraw to a quiet corner of a room for the purpose of meditation. Reflection on the truths of faith were to him the most precious pastime; and he published, from time to time, theological tracts as the fruit of such reflection.

Still he remained faithful to the ascetic mode of life, which had become, as it were, a second nature, since his residence in a cloister. Yet this was given up at last. In consequence of a long series of fasts and watchings, a morbid sleeplessness and loss of appetite were produced, which sometimes were accompanied with chills. He experienced a very violent attack in the year 1106, in the 73d year of his age: this was repeated in the Spring of 1107, and so debilitated him that he was no longer able to make his journeys on horseback, but was obliged to be carried in a litter. A third attack of sickness in July, 1108, completely prostrated him. All kinds of food became loathsome; an effort was required in eating. He became weaker and weaker, each day, until at last, in the Spring of 1109, he could no more be carried to the Church. He lay, after that, quietly on his bed, and addressed words of pious admonition, with tremulous voice, to all who sought his side. On Palm Sunday, one of his attendants said that it seemed as though he would celebrate Easter in the courts of a Lord and Master who was not of this earth. He replied, "Yes, it is likely, and I shall gladly obey his call; yet I would esteem it also something for which to be thankful, if he would permit me to remain a little while with you, and would give me a solution of a question that has occupied my whole attention, the origin of the soul." Afterwards he added, "If I could only eat, I should be well again: excepting bodily debility, I feel no pain." On the following Tuesday evening it was not possible to understand him, his voice had become so unintelligible. Then Bishop Radulf, of Rochester, asked him whether he did not wish to bless once more his flock, the King and Queen, as well as all the people of the country over which his spiritual supervision extended. Immediately he raised himself up,