His youthful licence.
He leaves Aosta. 1057.
His sojourn at Avranches.
He becomes a monk at Bec. 1060. sickness that might drive him into the cloister.[1] But the youth for a while cast aside his piety; he cast aside his learning; he gave himself to the thoughts and sports of the world; he even yielded to those temptations of the flesh which Wulfstan had withstood in the midst of his military exercises,[2] and which Thomas withstood in the midst of his worldly business.[3] But the love of his tender and pious mother kept him from wholly falling away. The yearning for a monastic life came upon him again, though his wishes were greatly opposed by his father. At last, in his twenty-fourth year, Anselm left his own land. After three years' sojourn in Burgundy and France, he reached Normandy, and, in the steps of Lanfranc, first took up his abode at Avranches.[4] But Lanfranc was now at Bec. Thither Anselm, fully bent on the monastic calling, followed the great scholar. He had doubted for a while between Bec and Clugny. We shall hardly think the worse of him for his frank confession of human feelings. He doubted, because at Clugny his human learning would be of no use, while at Bec it would be overshadowed by that of Lanfranc.[5] In the end, by the advice of Lanfranc him-*aut nulli prodesse,]*
- ↑ Eadmer, Vit. Ans. i. 1. 3. "Ille in suo proposito perstans oravit Deum, quatenus infirmari mereretur, ut vel sic ad monachicum quem desiderabat ordinem susciperetur."
- ↑ Will. Malms. Vita Wlst. 245. See N. C. vol. ii. p. 470. The confession of Anselm in this matter comes out in his sixteenth Meditation, p. 793 of Migne's edition. The passage seems to imply more serious offences than would have been guessed from the more general words of Eadmer, i. 1. 4. The meditation is addressed to a sister. If this means his own sister Richeza or Richera, it must have been before her marriage with Burgundius. See his Epistles, iii. 43.
- ↑ See William Fitz-Stephen, iii. 21, Robertson, and the remarkable story in William of Canterbury, i. 5, Robertson.
- ↑ Vit. Ans. i. 1. 45. See N. C. vol. ii. p. 228.
- ↑ Vit. Ans. i. 1. 6. He is made to say; "Ecce, inquit, monachus fiam. Sed ubi? Si Cluniaci vel Becci, totum tempus quod in discendis litteris posui, perdidi. Nam et Cluniaci districtio ordinis, et Becci supereminens prudentia Lanfranci, qui illic monachus est, me [al. mihi
