Anselm was received at Rome with the highest re spect; assisted at the council which was held by the pope at Bari ; and acquired great celebrity by a speech which he made against the errors of the Greek church. He was present in another papal council at Rome, towards the end of the same year, in which the famous canon against lay investitures was confirmed, and excommuni cation denounced against all who should exercise or ac knowledge such investitures; but, at the request of An selm, the execution of this sentence against the king of England was postponed; and, after repeated attempts, on the part of Urban, to procure his restoration, he re tired to Lyons, where he lived in a species of exile, till the death of William, A. D. 1100. He was immediately recalled by Henry I, and was received by that prince with every possible mark of respect ; but when requir ed to do homage to the king for the temporalities of his see, he refused compliance, and threatened instantly to leave the kingdom. Henry, unwilling to resign the right of bestowing ecclesiastical benefices, and, at the same time, anxious to secure every support against the claims of hi. brother Robert, proposed to submit the matter to the determination of the pope. In the mean time, he professed great reverence for Anselm, who, on his side, rendered the king many important services ; especially in promoting his marriage with Matilda, daughter of the king of Scotland, and in preserving the nobility steady in their allegiance, during the invasion of Eng land by Robert duke of Normandy. Soon after the paci fication between Henry and his brother, the king's mes sengers returned from Rome, with letters from the pope, in which his holiness asserted, in the strongest. terms, that the right of bestowing benefices on the clergy, and of receiving their homage, belonged en tirely to St Peter and his successors. Henry refused to relinquish what had long been considered as a preroga tive of the crown ; and the first time that Anselm ap peared at court, he commanded him, in a peremptory tone, to do homage for the revenues of his see. The archbishop refused compliance, announced his resolu tion to adhere to the canons of the church, immediately left the court, and retired to Canterbury. A council .was convened by the king at Winchester ; and three ambassadors were appointed to announce to the pope, in the name of the English nobility, "that, if he per sisted to deny the king's right to investitures and ho mage, they would drive Anselm out of the kingdom, withdraw their subjection to the see of Rome, and with hold their usual payments." The archbishop was per mitted to send messengers also on his part. The pope was desirous to please both parties, and gave them se parately very opposite answers, which naturally occa sioned new and violent debates. At length the king re quested the archbishop himself to go to Rome, and endeavour to procure permission from the pope to do homage to his prince, while he dispatched a faithful agent of his own to employ the most persuasive argu ments with that venal court. The cause was again pub
licly decided against Henry ; while Anselm retired to Lyons, protesting, that all the souls lost by his absence, should be laid to the king's charge, and threatening to procure a sentence of excommunication against him. By the mediation of Adela, countess of Blois, Henry's sis ter, and one of Anselm's greatest admirers, an interview was effected between them in Normandy ; a letter to the archbishop, favourable to the king of England, was pro cured from the pope ; their opposite claims were, in a manner, compromised ; and, after being detained seve ral months by a lingering indisposition, the primate re turned to England in August 1106, where he was wel comed by all ranks with the highest testimonies of joy and respect. He died at Canterbury three years after, on the 20th of April, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and the sixteenth of his primacy. A number of miracles are said to have been wrought by this archbi shop, both during his life and after his death; but such idle stories are utterly unworthy to be either recited or refuted. It may be observed, however, that they are not recorded by Eadmer, the friend and secretary of An selm, but by John of Salisbury, who died at least se venty years after that prelate, and who cannot, therefore, be supposed to have had any personal knowledge of the :%onderful events which he relates.
Anselni was a most zealous supporter of the tyran nical claims and superstitious austerities of the Romish church. He was the first who restrained the English elergy from marriage; and he enforced this prohibition by many very severe and oppressive edicts. He was the most distinguished moralist of his age ; but con demned any ornament in dress, and especially long hair on the head of a man, as zealously as the most enormous vices. He was himself a person of the strict est self-denial, and of uncommon sedateness of temper. He appears to have been guided by an honest, though often misguided zeal, and was capable of exerting the most undaunted resolution in Whatever his conscience dictated to be right. He was one of the most eminent men of his age in point of literary attainments, a very successful improver of the science of logic, and the ablest writer in metaphysical theology. For farther particulars respecting his life and writings, see Cave Hist. Liter. Soc. II an. 1093. Du Pin Hist.Eccles. cent. ii. Hist. Literairc de la France, torn. viii. p. 48; ix. p. 398. Rapin Hist. de ./Ingleterre, tom. ii. p. 65, 166, 4to. Mosheim's C'h. Hist. vol. ii. p. 466, 542, 550. Hume's Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 353. Henry's Hist. of Bri tain, vol. v. p. 280, kc. Biog. Briton. (q)