of Christ Church.
Eadmer. of the monks of Christ Church, and to dwell with them as one of themselves.[1] It was the time when Lanfranc was doing his work of reform among them,[2] a work which was doubtless helped by the sojourn and counsel of Anselm. With the more learned among them he lived familiarly, putting and answering questions, both in profane and sacred lore.[3] And among them he made one friend, English by blood and name, whose memory is for ever entwined with his own. It was now that Eadmer, then a young monk of the house, won his deep regard, and attached himself for ever to the master whose acts he was in after times to record.[4]
Anselm's general popularity in England. But it was not only in the church which was one day to be his own, or among men of his own order only, that Anselm made friends in England. He made a kind of progress through the land, being welcomed everywhere, as well in the courts of nobles as in the houses of monks, nuns, and canons.[5] Everywhere he scattered the good seed of his teaching, speaking to all according to their several callings, to men and women, married and unmarried, monks, clerks, laymen, making himself, as far as was lawful, all things to all men.[6] Scholar and*
- ↑ Vit. Ans. i. 5. 41. "Accepta fraternitate monachorum, factus est inter eos unus ex eis. Degens per dies aliquot inter eos et quotidie, aut in capitulo, aut in claustro, mira quædam et illis adhuc temporibus insolita de vita et moribus monachorum coram eis rationabili facundia disserens."
- ↑ See N. C. vol. iv. p. 361.
- ↑ Vit. Ans. u. s. "Privatim quoque aliis horis agebat, cum his qui profundioris ingenii erant, profundas eis de divinis nec non sæcularibus libris quæstiones proponens, propositasque exponens."
- ↑ Ib. "Quo tempore et ego ad sanctitatis ejus notitiam pervenire merui, ac, pro modulo parvitatis meæ, beata illius familiaritate utpote adolescens, qui tunc eram, non parum potiri."
- ↑ Ib. 6. 45. "Vadens et ad diversa monasteria monachorum, canonicorum, sanctimonialium, nec non ad curias quorumque nobilium, prout eum ratio ducebat, perveniens, lætissime suscipiebatur, et suscepto quæque charitatis obsequia gratissime ministrabantur."
- ↑ Ib. "Solito more cunctis se jucundum et affabilem exhibebat, moresque singulorum in quantum sine peccato poterat, in se suscipiebat."
