ANSELM, archbishop of Canterbury, was born in the year 1033, at Aosta, a town of Piedmont, situated on the river Doria, at the foot of the Alps. He was descended of noble and pious parents, and received a liberal educa tion. While travelling in France, he was attracted by the fame of Lanfranc, prior of Bec, in Normandy, under whose tuition he prosecuted his studies with great ar dour and success. At the age of twenty-seven he as sumed the monastic habit among the Benedictines; three years after, succeeded Lanfranc in the priory of Bec ; and, in 1078, was unanimously elected abbot of that monastery. He was in England in 1093, upon a visit to Hugh earl of Chester, at the time when William II, during a severe sickness, was at length prevailed upon to fill the see of Canterbury, after having kept it vacant almost five years ; and having been invited to attend the king during his illness, was nominated by him to that high dignity. Anselm, aware of the rapacious temper of Rufus, discovered great reluctance to accept so important a station in his dominions; was, in a man ner, forcibly invested with the pastoral staff and ring ; and at length consented to receive consecration to the office of archbishop, on the 4th of December, 1093. He was very soon involved in quarrels with William ; partly in consequence of the violent and haughty temper of that prince, and partly in consequence of his own obsti nacy and imprudence. In his first interview with the king, at Hastings, he pressed him so strongly to call a council of the clergy, and to fill up the vacant abbeys, and reproved so freely the effeminate and dissolute man ners of the court, that William relused to accept his contribution for the expedition to Normandy, as too small; and expressed his dissatisfaction in the strongest terms. About this time, the Christian world was divided between the two contending popes, Urban and Clement ; but the kingdom of England had not yet declared in favour of either. Anselm had submitted to Urban, be fore his promotion to the see of Canterbury, and now petitioned the king for permission to visit Rome, and to receive his pall from that pontiff. William considered such a step, on the part of the archbishop, as contrary to his own oath of fealty, as well as to the laws of Eng land ; and, after much angry altercation, the dispute was referred to a numerous council of the nobility and pre lates. After long deliberation, the fohowing decision
was announced to Anselm by the bishops: " That, un less he yielded obedience to the king, and retracted his submission to Urban, they would no longer acknowledge him as their primate." Anselm appealed to St Peter, whose vicar he declared himself determined to obey, rather than the king ; and, though he had formerly as sured the council, that he would rather have been burn ed alive, than have been made an archbishop, yet, when his resignation was anticipated, as the only means of restoring the peace of the kingdom, he declared his re solution never to resign his see. William, despairing to overcome the obstinacy of the archbishop by violence, privately proposed to Urban, that he would acknowledge him as pope, if he would consent to the deposition of Anselm, and send a pall to the king, to be bestowed on whom he pleased. Urban promised all that the king desired, and sent the bishop of Alba, as his legate to England, with a pall. William was easily persuaded by the nuncio, that Urban was entirely in his interest, and commanded him to be acknowledged by his subjects as lawful pope; but when he proceeded to treat about the deprivation of Anselm, and to demand the disposal of the pall, Alba refused compliance, and sheaved that he had orders to deliver it only to the archbishop. Wil liam was so much engaged with an expedition into Normandy, that he had not leisure to resent this perfi dious conduct ; and it was at length agreed, that the pall should be carried down to Canterbury, laid upon the al tar of the cathedral, and taken thence by Anselm, as if he had received it from St Peter himself. In 1097, the king, after his return from Normandy, took offence at the insufficient aid which the archbishop supplied in the subjugation of Wales, and was so irritated by his impor tunate applications for permission to visit Rome, that he commanded him to leave the kingdom in eleven days, and charged him never to return.