Letters between Anselm and Walter.
Position of the bishops. an expected Norman invasion.[1] If Anselm's conscience would have allowed him to take part in actual warfare, we can hardly fancy that he would have proved a captain to the liking of the Red King. Yet it does sometimes happen that a simple sense of duty will carry a man with credit through business the most opposite to his own temper and habits. It is more likely however that the duty really laid upon Anselm, as upon Wulfstan at Worcester, was rather to keep the minds of the King's forces up to the mark by stirring exhortations, while the task of personally fighting and personally commanding was given to others. Still he was, both by the King's word of mouth and by his writ and seal, entrusted with the care of the district,[2] and he deemed it his duty not to leave Canterbury, except to go to any point that might be immediately threatened.[3] Why Walter could not have come to Canterbury is not clear. Anyhow personal communication was hindered, and to that hindrance we owe a letter which gives us a further insight into the almost incredible shamelessness of the King's courtly bishops. Walter, it is plain, had been rebuking them for their conduct towards Anselm. They were open to ecclesiastical censure for denying their archbishop, and he blames Anselm himself for too great lenity towards them.[4] Anselm pleads that they had returned to him and had promised obedience for the future.[5] The others, it would seem, had followed the
- ↑ Epp. iii. 35. See the next chapter.
- ↑ Ib. "Rex ore suo mihi præcepit . . . et postquam Cantuarberiam reddi mihi mandavit per litteras proprio sigillo signatas."
- ↑ Ib. "Idcirco de Cantuaria exire non audeo, nisi in illam partem ex qua hostium expectamus adventum."
- ↑ Ib. 36. "Quod quæritis a me cur et qua justitia episcopi alii me abnegantes a me discesserunt, nec sunt reversi dignam agentes pœnitentiam, hoc potius ab illis quærendum erat quam a me."
- ↑ Ib. "Reversi hactenus sunt ut illam obedientiam quam Cantuariensi sedi promiserant se mihi servaturos faterentur."
