Anselm's purposes.
He will leave the realm if he may not acknowledge Urban. judgement on the point of law he would abide. If they ruled that it was as the King said, that obedience to Urban was inconsistent with allegiance to William, then he would shape his own course accordingly. If such should be their verdict, he could not abide in the land without either openly throwing off the obedience of Urban or else openly breaking his duty as subject and liegeman to William. He would do neither. In such a case he would leave the realm till such time as the King should acknowledge Urban.[1] By that means he would avoid all breach of either duty. The case might well have been argued on another ground, whether it was not being righteous overmuch to bring back again, for the sake of a technical scruple of any kind, all the evils which would at once follow if the land were again left without an archbishop. Anselm's answer would doubtless have been that he could not do evil that good might come. And it would be much clearer to the mind of Anselm than it would have been to the mind of any native Englishman that a withdrawal of obedience from Urban was the doing of evil. The feelings of Aosta, even the feelings of Bec, were not quite at home in the air of Gillingham. But the bringing in of foreign ideas, feelings, and scruples, was one of the necessary consequences of foreign conquest. Anselm obeyed his own conscience, and his conscience taught him as a
- [Footnote: quatenus episcopis, abbatibus, cunctisque regni principibus, una coëuntibus
communi assensu definiretur, utrum salva reverentia et obedientia sedis apostolicæ posset fidem terreno regi servare, annon." These words must be specially attended to, as they contain the whole root of the matter with regard to the council of Rockingham. The word "indutiæ" is rather hard to translate. It means an adjournment, but something more than an adjournment. The word "truce," commonly used to express it, is rather too strong; yet it is sometimes hard to avoid it.]
- ↑ Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 26. "Quod si probatum, inquit, fuerit, utrumque fieri minime posse, fateor malo terram tuam, donec apostolicum suscipias, exeundo devitare, quam beati Petri ejusque vicarii obedientiam vel ad horam abnegare."
