Anselm's desire to do justice.
His first visit to England. 1078.
His friendship with the monks not wholly escape it. No man, no society of men, in either the Normandy or the England of those days, could hope to keep clear of law-suits. The house of Herlwin, new as it was and holy as it was, seems to have been entangled in not a few. Anselm's chief wish was that in these disputes justice should be done to all concerned. There were among the monks of Bec, as among the monks of other houses, men who knew the law and who were skilful in legal pleadings. The Abbot had sometimes to charge them to make no unfair use of their skill, and not to strive to win any advantage for the house but such as was strictly just.[1] Otherwise, as far as he could, he entrusted mere worldly affairs—the serving of tables—to others.[2] Yet he could not avoid journeys beyond sea on behalf of the house. He was thus more than once compelled to visit England. He crossed the sea in the first year of his appointment as abbot. He came to Canterbury; he was received with mickle worship by Lanfranc and the monks of Christ Church.[3] The first touch of English soil seems to have changed the Burgundian saint, the Norman abbot, into an Englishman and an English patriot. It was now that he made the memorable discourse in which he showed that English Ælfheah was a true martyr.[4] The Abbot of Bec did not scorn to be admitted into the brotherhood
- ↑ Eadmer, Vit. Ans. i. 5. 37. "Abominabile quippe judicabat, si quidvis lucri assequeretur ex eo quod alius contra moderamina juris quavis astutia perdere posset. Unde neminem in placitis patiebatur a suis aliqua fraude circumveniri, observans ne cui faceret quod sibi fieri nollet." Compare the cunning lawyers whom Abbot Adelelm found among the monks of Abingdon, N. C. vol. iv. p. 476.
- ↑ Ib. "Delegatis monasterii causis curæ ac sollicitudini fratrum, de quorum vita et strenuitate certus erat."
- ↑ Ib. 41. "Cum igitur Anselmus, transito mari, Cantuariam veniret, pro sua reverentia et omnibus nota sanctitate, honorifice a conventu ecclesiæ Christi in ipsa civitate sitæ susceptus est." His discourse to the monks is given at great length.
- ↑ See N. C. vol. iv. p. 441.
