when the former sought to exact large sums of money from his subjects to
carry on war against his brother Robert. Among those who were expected
to make heavy contributions, in the shape of presents, was the
Archbishop of Canterbury, whose revenues were enormous,--perhaps the
largest in the realm next to those of the King. Anselm offered as his
contribution five hundred marks, what would now be equal to £10,000,--a
large sum in those days, but not as much as the Norman sovereign
expected. In indignation he refused the present, which seemed to him
meagre, especially since it was accompanied with words of seeming
reproof; for Anselm had said that "a free gift, which he meant this to
be, was better than a forced and servile contribution." The King then
angrily bade him begone; "that he wanted neither his money nor his
scolding." The courtiers tried to prevail on the prelate to double the
amount of his present, and thus regain the royal favor; but he firmly
refused to do this, since it looked to him like a corrupt bargain.
Anselm, having distributed among the poor the money which the King had
refused, left the court as soon as the Christmas festival was over and
retired to his diocese, preserving his independence and dignity.
A breach had not been made, but the irritation was followed by coolness;
and this was increased when Anselm desired to have the religious posts
filled the revenues of which the King had too long enjoyed, and when, in
addition, he demanded a council of bishops to remedy the disorders and
growing evils of the kingdom. This council the angry King refused with a
sneer, saying, "he would call the council when he himself pleased, not
when Anselm pleased." As to the filling the vacancies of the abbeys, he
further replied: "What are abbeys to _you_? Are they not _mine_? Go and
do what you like with your farms, and I will do what I please with my
abbeys." So they parted, these two potentates, the King saying to his
companions, "I hated him yesterday; I hate him more to-day; and I shall
hate him still more to-morrow. I refuse alike his blessings and his
prayers." His chief desire now was to get rid of the man he had elevated
to the throne of Canterbury. It may be observed that it was not the Pope
who made this appointment, but the King of England. Yet, by the rules
long established by the popes and accepted by Christendom, it was
necessary that an archbishop, before he could fully exercise his
spiritual powers, should go to Rome and receive at the hands of the Pope
his _pallium_, or white woollen stole, as the badge of his office and
dignity. Lanfranc had himself gone to Rome for this purpose,--and a
journey from Canterbury to Rome in the eleventh century was no small
undertaking, being expensive and fatiguing. But there were now at Rome
two rival popes. Which one should Anselm recognize? France and Normandy
acknowledged Urban. England was undecided whether it should be Urban or
Clement. William would probably recognize the one that Anselm did not,
for a rupture was certain, and the King sought for a pretext.
So when the Archbishop asked leave of the King to go to Rome, according
to custom, William demanded to know to which of these two popes he would
apply for his pallium. "To Pope Urban," was the reply. "But," said the
King, "him I have not acknowledged; and no man in England may
acknowledge a pope without my leave." At first view the matter was a
small one comparatively, whether Urban was or was not the true pope.
The real point was whether the King of England should accept as pope the
man whom the Archbishop recognized, or whether the Archbishop should
acknowledge him whom the King had accepted. This could be settled only
by a grand council of the nation, to whom the matter should be
submitted,--virtually a parliament. This council, demanded by Anselm,
met in the royal castle of Rockingham, 1095, composed of nobles,
bishops, and abbots. A large majority of the council were in the
interests of the King, and the subject at issue was virtually whether
the King or the prelate was supreme in spiritual matters,--a point which
the Conqueror had ceded to Lanfranc and Hildebrand. This council
insulted and worried the primate, and sought to frighten him into
submission. But submission was to yield up the liberties of the Church.
The intrepid prelate was not prepared for this, and he appealed from the
council to the Pope, thereby putting himself in antagonism to the King
and a majority of the peers of the realm. The King was exasperated, but
foiled, while the council was perplexed. The Bishop of Durham saw no
solution but in violence; but violence to the metropolitan was too bold
a measure to be seriously entertained. The King hoped that Anselm would
resign, as his situation was very unpleasant.
But resignation would be an act of cowardice, and would result in the
appointment of an archbishop favorable to the encroachments of the King,
who doubtless aimed at the subversion of the liberties of the Church and
greater independence. Five centuries later the sympathies of England
would have been on his side. But the English nation felt differently in
the eleventh century. All Christendom sympathized with the Pope; for
this resistance of Anselm to the King was the cause of the popes
themselves against the monarchs of Europe. Anselm simply acted as the
vicegerent of the Pope. To submit to the dictation of the King in a
spiritual matter was to undermine the authority of Rome. I do not
attempt to settle the merits of the question, but only to describe the
contest. To settle the merits of such a question is to settle the
question whether the papal power in its plenitude was good or evil for
society in the Middle Ages.
One thing seems certain, that the King was thus far foiled by the
firmness of a churchman,--the man who had passed the greater part of his
life in a convent, studying and teaching theology; one of the mildest
and meekest men ever elevated to high ecclesiastical office. Anselm was
sustained by the power of conscience, by an imperative sense of duty, by
allegiance to his spiritual head. He indeed owed fealty to the King, but
only for the temporalities of his See. His paramount obligations as an
archbishop were, according to all the ideas of his age, to the supreme
pontiff of Christendom. Doubtless his life would have been easier and
more pleasant had he been more submissive to the King. He could have
brought all the bishops, as well as barons, to acknowledge the King's
supremacy; but on his shoulders was laid the burden of sustaining
ecclesiastical authority in England. He had anticipated this burden, and
would have joyfully been exempted from its weight. But having assumed
it, perhaps against his will, he had only one course to pursue,
according to the ideas of the age; and this was to maintain the supreme
authority of the Pope in England in all spiritual matters. It was
remarkable that at this stage of the contest the barons took his side,
and the bishops took the side of the King. The barons feared for their
own privileges should the monarch be successful; for they knew his
unscrupulous and tyrannical character,--that he would encroach on these
and make himself as absolute as possible. The bishops were weak and
worldly men, and either did not realize the gravity of the case or
wished to gain the royal favor. They were nearly all Norman nobles, who
had been under obligations to the crown.
The King, however, understood and appreciated his position. He could not
afford to quarrel with the Pope; he dared not do violence to the primate
of the realm. So he dissembled his designs and restrained his wrath, and
sought to gain by cunning what he could not openly effect by the
exercise of royal power. He sent messengers and costly gifts to Rome,
such as the needy and greedy servants of the servants of God rarely
disdained. He sought to conciliate the Pope, and begged, as a favor,
that the pallium should be sent to him as monarch, and given by him,
with the papal sanction, to the Archbishop,--the name of Anselm being
suppressed. This favor, being bought by potent arguments, was granted
unwisely, and the pallium was sent to William with the greatest secrecy.
In return, the King acknowledged the claims of Urban as pope. So Anselm
did not go to Rome for the emblem of his power.
The King, having succeeded thus far, then demanded of the Pope the
deposition of Anselm. He could not himself depose the archbishop. He
could elevate him, but not remove him; he could make, but not unmake.
Only he who held the keys of Saint Peter, who was armed with spiritual
omnipotence, could reverse his own decrees and rule arbitrarily. But for
any king to expect that the Pope would part with the ablest defender of
the liberties of the Church, and disgrace him for being faithful to
papal interests, was absurd. The Pope may have used smooth words, but
was firm in the uniform policy of all his predecessors.
Meanwhile political troubles came so thick and heavy on the King, some
of his powerful nobles being in open rebellion, that he felt it
necessary to dissemble and defer the gratification of his vengeance on
the man he hated more than any personage in England. He pretended to
restore Anselm to favor. "Bygones should be bygones." The King and the
Archbishop sat at dinner at Windsor with friends and nobles, while an
ironical courtier pleasantly quoted the Psalmist, "Behold, how good and
how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!"
The King now supposed that Anselm would receive the pallium at his royal
hands, which the prelate warily refused to accept. The subject was
carefully dropped, but as the pallium was Saint Peter's gift, it was
brought to Canterbury and placed upon the altar, and the Archbishop
condescended, amid much pomp and ceremony, to take it thence and put it
on,--a sort of puerile concession for the sake of peace. The King, too,
wishing conciliation for the present, until he had gained the possession
of Normandy from his brother Robert, who had embarked in the Crusades,
and feeling that he could ill afford to quarrel with the highest
dignitary of his kingdom until his political ambition was gratified,
treated Anselm with affected kindness, until his ill success with the
Celtic Welsh put him in a bad humor and led to renewed hostility. He
complained that Anselm had not furnished his proper contingent of forces
for the conquest of Wales, and summoned him to his court. In a secular
matter like this, Anselm as a subject had no remedy. Refusal to appear
would be regarded as treason and rebellion. Yet he neglected to obey the
summons, perhaps fearing violence, and sought counsel from the Pope. He
asked permission to go to Rome. The request was angrily refused. Again
he renewed his request, and again it was denied him, with threats if he
departed without leave. The barons, now against him, thought he had no
right to leave his post; the bishops even urged him not to go. To all of
whom he replied: "You wish me to swear that I will not appeal to Saint
Peter. To swear this is to forswear Saint Peter; to forswear Saint Peter
is to forswear Christ." At last it seems that the King gave a reluctant
consent, but with messages that were insulting; and Anselm, with a
pilgrim's staff, took leave of his monks, for the chapter of Canterbury
was composed of monks, set out for Dover, and reached the continent
in safety.
"Thus began," says Church, "the system of appeals to Rome, and of
inviting foreign interference in the home affairs of England; and Anselm
was the beginning of it." But however unfortunate it ultimately proved,
it was in accordance with the ideas and customs of the Middle Ages,
without which the papal power could not have been so successfully
established. And I take the ground that the Papacy was an institution of
which very much may be said in its favor in the dark ages of European
society, especially in restraining the tyranny of kings and the
turbulence of nobles. Governments are based on expediencies and changing
circumstances, not on immutable principles or divine rights. If this be
not true, we are driven to accept as the true form of government that
which was recognized by Christ and his disciples. The feudal kings of
Europe claimed a "divine right," and professed to reign by the "grace of
God." Whence was this right derived? If it can be substantiated, on what
claim rests the sovereignty of the people? Are not popes and kings and
bishops alike the creation of circumstances, good or evil inventions, as
they meet the wants of society?
Anselm felt himself to be the subject of the Pope as well as of the
King, but that, as a priest, his supreme allegiance should be given to
the Pope, as the spiritual head of the Church and vicegerent of Christ
upon the earth. We differ from him in his view of the claims of the
Pope, which he regarded as based on immutable truth and the fiat of
Almighty power,--even as Richelieu looked upon the imbecile king whom he
served as reigning by divine right. The Protestant Reformation
demolished the claims of the spiritual potentate, as the French
Revolution swept away the claims of the temporal monarch. The "logic of
events" is the only logic which substantiates the claims of rulers; and
this logic means, in our day, constitutional government in politics and
private judgment in religion,--the free choice of such public servants,
whatever their titles of honor, in State and Church, as the exigencies
and circumstances of society require. The haughtiest of the popes, in
the proudest period of their absolute ascendancy, never rejected their
early title,--"servant of the servants of God." Wherever there is real
liberty among the people, whose sovereignty is acknowledged as the
source of power, the ruler _is_ a servant of the people and not their
tyrant, however great the authority which they delegate to him, which
they alone may continue or take away. Absolute authority, delegated to
kings or popes by God, was the belief of the Middle Ages; limited
authority, delegated to rulers by the people, is the idea of our times.
What the next invention in government may be no one can tell; but
whatever it be, it will be in accordance with the ideas and altered
circumstances of progressive ages. No one can anticipate or foresee the
revolutions in human thought, and therefore in human governments, "till
He shall come whose right it is to reign."
Taking it, then, to be the established idea of the Middle Ages that all
ecclesiastics owed supreme allegiance to the visible head of the Church,
no one can blame Anselm for siding with the Pope, rather than with his
sovereign, in spiritual matters. He would have been disloyal to his
conscience if he had not been true to his clerical vows of obedience.
Conscience may be unenlightened, yet take away the power of conscience
and what would become of our world? What is a man without a conscience?
He is a usurper, a tyrant, a libertine, a spendthrift, a robber, a
miser, an idler, a trifler,--whatever he is tempted to be; a supreme
egotist, who says in his heart, "There is no God." The Almighty Creator
placed this instinct in the soul of man to prevent the total eclipse of
faith, and to preserve some allegiance to Him, some guidance in the
trials and temptations of life. We lament a perverted conscience; yet
better this than no conscience at all, a voice silenced by the combined
forces of evil. A man _must_ obey this voice. It is the wisdom of the
ages to make it harmonious with eternal right; it is the power of God to
remove or weaken the assailing forces which pervert or silence it.
See, then, this gentle, lovable, and meditative scholar--not haughty
like Dunstan, not arrogant like Becket, not sacerdotal like Ambrose, not
passionate like Chrysostom, but meek as Moses is said to have been
before Pharaoh (although I never could see this distinguishing trait in
the Hebrew leader)--yet firmly and heroically braving the wrath of the
sovereign who had elevated him, and pursuing his toilsome journey to
Rome to appeal to justice against injustice, to law against violence.
He reached the old capital of the world in midwinter, after having spent
Christmas in that hospitable convent where Hildebrand had reigned, and
which was to shield the persecuted Abélard from the wrath of his
ecclesiastical tormentors. He was most honorably received by the Pope,
and lodged in the Lateran, as the great champion of papal authority.
Vainly did he beseech the Pope to relieve him from his dignities and
burdens; for such a man could not be spared from the exalted post in
which he had been placed. Peace-loving as he was, his destiny was to
fight battles.
In the following year Pope Urban died; and in the following year William
Rufus himself was accidentally killed in the New Forest. His death was
not much lamented, he having proved hard, unscrupulous, cunning, and
tyrannical. At this period the kings of England reigned with almost
despotic power, independent of barons and oppressive to the people.
William had but little regard for the interests of the kingdom. He built
neither churches nor convents, but Westminster Hall was the memorial of
his iron reign.
Much was expected of Henry I., who immediately recalled Anselm from
Lyons, where he was living in voluntary exile. He returned to
Canterbury, with the firm intention of reforming the morals of the
clergy and resisting royal encroachments. Henry was equally resolved on
making bishops as well as nobles subservient to him. Of course harmony
and concord could not long exist between such men, with such opposite
views. Even at the first interview of the King with the Archbishop at
Salisbury, he demanded a renewal of homage by a new act of investiture,
which was virtually a continuance of the quarrel. It was, however,
mutually agreed that the matter should be referred to the new pope.
Anselm, on his part, knew that the appeal was hopeless; while the King
wished to gain time. It was not long before the answer of Pope Pascal
came. He was willing that Henry should have many favors, but not this.
Only the head of the Church could bestow the emblems of spiritual
authority. On receiving the papal reply the King summoned his nobles and
bishops to his court, and required that Anselm should acknowledge the
right of the King to invest prelates with the badges of spiritual
authority. The result was a second embassy to the Pope, of more
distinguished persons,--the Archbishop of York and two other prelates.
The Pope, of course, remained inflexible. On the return of the envoys a
great council was assembled in London, and Anselm again was required to
submit to the King's will. It seems that the Pope, from motives of
policy (for all the popes were reluctant to quarrel with princes), had
given the envoys assurance that, so long as Henry was a good king, he
should not be disturbed, and that oral declarations were contrary to his
written documents.
This contradiction and double dealing required a new embassy to Rome;
but in the mean time the King gave the See of Salisbury to his
chancellor, and that of Hereford to the superintendent of his larder.
When the answer of the Pope was finally received, it was found that he
indignantly disavowed the verbal message, and excommunicated the three
prelates as liars. But the King was not disconcerted. He suddenly
appeared at Canterbury, and told Anselm that further opposition would be
followed by the royal enmity; yet, mollifying his wrath, requested
Anselm himself to go to Rome and do what he could with the Pope. Anselm
assured him that he could do nothing to the prejudice of the Church. He
departed, however, the King obviously wishing him out of the way.
The second journey of Anselm to Rome was a perpetual ovation, but was of
course barren of results. The Pope remained inflexible, and Anselm
prepared to return to England; but, from the friendly hints of the
prelates who accompanied him, he sojourned again at Lyons with his
friend the archbishop. Both the Pope and the King had compromised;
Anselm alone was straightforward and fearless. As a consequence his
revenues were seized, and he remained in exile. He had been willing to
do the Pope's bidding, had he made an exception to the canons; but so
long as the law remained in force he had nothing to do but conform to
it. He remained in Lyons a year and a half, while Henry continued his
negotiations with Pascal; but finding that nothing was accomplished,
Anselm resolved to excommunicate his sovereign. The report of this
intention alarmed Henry, then preparing for a decisive conflict with his
brother Robert. The excommunication would at least be inconvenient; it
might cost him his crown. So he sought an interview with Anselm at the
castle of l'Aigle, and became outwardly reconciled, and restored to him
his revenues.
"The end of the dreary contest came at last, in 1107, after vexatious
delays and intrigues." It was settled by compromise,--as most quarrels
are settled, as most institutions are established. Outwardly the King
yielded. He agreed, in an assembly of nobles, bishops, and abbots at
London, that henceforth no one should be invested with bishopric or
abbacy, either by king or layman, by the customary badges of ring and
crosier. Anselm, on his part, agreed that no prelate should be refused
consecration who was nominated by the King. The appointment of bishops
remained with the King; but the consecration could be withheld by the
primate, since he alone had the right to give the badges of office,
without which spiritual functions could not be lawfully performed. It
was a moral victory to the Church, but the victory of an unpopular
cause. It cemented the power of the Pope, while freedom from papal
interference has ever been dear to the English nation.
When Anselm had fought this great fight he died, 1109, in the sixteenth
year of his reign as primate of the Church in England, and was buried,
next to Lanfranc, in his abbey church. His career outwardly is memorable
only for this contest, which was afterwards renewed by Thomas Becket
with a greater king than either William Rufus or Henry I. It is
interesting, since it was a part of the great struggle between the
spiritual and temporal powers for two hundred years,--from Hildebrand to
Innocent III. This was only one of the phases of the quarrel,--one of
the battles of a long war,--not between popes and emperors, as in
Germany and Italy, but between a king and the vicegerent of a pope; a
king and his subject, the one armed with secular, the other with
spiritual, weapons. It was only brought to an end by an appeal to the
fears of men,--the dread of excommunication and consequent torments in
hell, which was the great governing idea of the Middle Ages, the means
by which the clergy controlled the laity. Abused and perverted as this
idea was, it indicates and presupposes a general belief in the
personality of God, in rewards and punishments in a future state, and
the necessity of conforming to the divine laws as expounded and
enforced by the Christian Church. Hence the dark ages have been called
"Ages of Faith."
It now remains to us to contemplate Anselm as a theologian and
philosopher,--a more interesting view, for in this aspect his character
is more genial, and his influence more extended and permanent. He is one
of the first who revived theological studies in Europe. He did not teach
in the universities as a scholastic doctor, but he was one who prepared
the way for universities by the stimulus he gave to philosophy. It was
in his abbey of Bec that he laid the foundation of a new school of
theological inquiry. In original genius he was surpassed by no
scholastic in the Middle Ages, although both Abélard and Thomas Aquinas
enjoyed a greater fame. It was for his learning and sanctity that he was
canonized,--and singularly enough by Alexander VI., the worst pope who
ever reigned. Still more singular is it that the last of his successors,
as abbot of Bec, was the diplomatist Talleyrand,--one of the most
worldly and secular of all the ecclesiastical dignitaries of an
infidel age.