Anselm requires to be allowed to acknowledge Urban. on the controversy as one in which there was much to be said on both sides. The chief argument for Urban was that his supporters seemed to increase in number; otherwise no one really knew on which side the divine right was. In England opinion was divided; but fear of the King—so we are told—made it lean on the whole to Clement.[1] Earlier in the reign we have heard Bishop William of Durham talk a great deal about going to the Pope; but he had taken care not to say to which pope he meant to go, and in the end he had not gone to either.[2] With Anselm the matter was more serious. Urban was his pope. All the churches of Gaul had acknowledged him; Bec and the other churches of Normandy had acknowledged him along with the rest.[3] From the obedience which he had thus plighted he could not fall back. He told the King that, though he, King William, had not acknowledged Urban, yet he, Anselm, must continue to acknowledge him and to yield him such obedience as was his due.[4] To be allowed freely to do so must be one of the conditions of his accepting the archbishopric.*
- ↑ There is a most important passage of William of Malmesbury in his first draught of the Gesta Pontificum (p. 86, note) which he afterwards, as in so many other cases, found it expedient to tone down. As he wrote it, it stood thus; "Erant his diebus duo competitores Romani præsulatus, summi ambo et prestantes viri. Uterque causam verisimilibus rationibus fulciebat, Urbanus electione cardinalium, Guibertus electione imperatoris Theutonum, cujus esset Roma et Italia. Neuter ergo pro persona sua cedebat. Guiberto necessitatem subjectionis ministrabat terrarum tractus qui sub imperio illius jacet; Urbano favebat omnis Gallia et Normannia, et cetera usque ad oceanum Brittannicum. Incertum cui faveret Divinitas, nisi quod Urbani fama prosperius crementum sumebat. Consensu dubio fluctuabat Anglia, in Guibertum tamen inclinatior propter metum regis."
- ↑ See above, p. 117.
- ↑ Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 25. "Urbano jamdudum pro vicario beati Petri ab Italia Galliaque recepto; Anselmus etiam, utpote abbas de Normannia, eum pro papa receperat, et, sicut vir nominatissimus, necnon authoritate plenus ejus literas susceperat, eique velut summo sanctæ ecclesiæ pastori suas direxerat."
- ↑ Ib. 20. "De Romano quoque pontifice Urbano, quem pro apostolico
