His correspondence.
Intercourse between Bec and England. honourable title of mothers of the house.[1] Like all the saints and scholars of his day, he had a crowd of correspondents of all classes; amongst them we see Countess Ida of Boulogne and the Conqueror's renowned daughter Adela.[2] And throughout his life and letters we see constant signs of the daily intercourse which, as naturally followed on the circumstances of the time, was ever going on between Normandy and England. The endless going to and fro between the two countries strikes us at every step.[3] There was an interchange of men; if many Normans found their way to England, some Englishmen found their way to Normandy. Bec had already begun to give bishops to England. Lanfranc had placed two monks of his old house in the episcopal chair of Rochester.[4] The second of them, the famous Gundulf, had been, when at Bec, the familiar friend of Anselm, who spoke little himself, but who listened to the great teacher, and wept at his touching words.[5] On the other hand, in the house of Bec itself there were monks who were English of the Old-English stock, monks whom Lanfranc thought fit to call back to their own land and to the monastery of which he was the spiritual father.[6]*
- ↑ See Appendix Y.
- ↑ See Appendix Y.
- ↑ See Appendix Y.
- ↑ See N. C. vol. iv. p. 366.
- ↑ There is something amusing in the picture of the two in the Life of Gundulf, Anglia Sacra, ii. 275. "Anselmus, quia in scripturis eruditior erat, frequentior loquebatur. Gundulfus vero, quia in lacrimis profusior erat, magis fletibus rigabatur. Loquebatur ille; plorabat iste. Ille plantabat; iste rigabat. Divina ille proferebat eloquia; profunda iste trahebat suspiria. Christi vices ille, iste gerebat Mariæ." There are not a few letters of Anselm addressed to Gundulf. See Appendix Y.
- ↑ Among these was one of the men named Osbern—there would seem to be more than one—who play a part in the life of Anselm. There is the Osbern mentioned in the Life, i. 2. 13, 14, as first the bitter enemy and then the chosen friend of Anselm. He seems to live and die at Bec, and after his death he appears to Anselm and tells him how the old serpent thrice rose up against him, but the Lord's bearward, "ursarius Domini Dei" (comp. N. C. vol. ii. p. 26), saves him. Then there is the Osbern
