He is installed in the church. the Kings bed. The King held out the staff; the Abbot, though his arm was stretched out against his will, held his hand firmly clenched. The bishops strove to force open his fingers, till he shrieked with the pain. After much striving, they managed to raise his forefinger, to place the staff between that one finger and his still closed hand, and to keep it there with their own hands.[1] This piece of sheer violence was held to be a lawful investiture. The assembled crowd—we are still in the sick king's room—began to shout "Long live the Bishop." The bishops and clergy began to sing Te Deum with a loud voice.[2] Then the bishops, abbots, and nobles, seized Anselm, and carried rather than led him into a neighbouring church—was it the great minster of Ealdred or its successor growing up under the hands of Serlo?[3]—while he still refused and struggled and protested that all that they did went for nothing.[4] A looker-on, Anselm himself says, might have doubted whether a crowd in their right mind were dragging a single madman, or whether a crowd of madmen were dragging a single man who kept his right mind.[5] Anyhow they reached the church and there went through the ceremonies which
- ↑ I am but translating Eadmer; "Indice levato, sed protinus ab eo reflexo, clausæ manui ejus baculus appositus est, et episcoporum manibus cum eadem manu compressus atque retentus."
- ↑ "Acclamante autem multitudine, 'Vivat episcopus, vivat;' episcopi cum clero sublimi voce hymnum Te Deum laudamus decantare cœpere."
- ↑ "Electum portaverunt pontificem potius quam duxerunt in vicinam ecclesiam." On the works of Serlo, see N. C. vol. iv. p. 384.
- ↑ "Ipso modis, quibus poterat, resistente, atque dicente, nihil est quod facitis, nihil est quod facitis."
- ↑ This is Anselm's own comparison in his letter to the monks of Bec, Ep. iii. 1; "Quando me episcopi et abbates aliique primates ad ecclesiam trahentes reclamantem et contradicentem rapuerunt, ita ut dubium videri posset utrum sanum insani, an insanum traherent sani; nisi quia illi canebant et ego magis mortuo quam viventi colore similis stupore et dolore pallebam." Presently he says; "Huic autem de me electioni, imo violentiæ, hactenus quantum potui, servata veritate, reluctatus sum." The last word may be taken in its original physical sense.
