ABSTRACT
Anselm had now won almost every privilege for Canterbury that he had sought from both the king and the pope. In reality, what is called the English Investiture Contest was a three-way struggle between king, pope, and archbishop, for Anselm was just as concerned to win his rights from Pope Paschal as he was from King Henry. Anselm had a vision of the right order for England from the very beginning of his archiepiscopate, 1 based on the pattern Lanfranc had set as archbishop. Anselm wanted to rule as the king’s chief advisor, his first counsellor, an equal ox drawing the plow of the Church through the land. 2 He also had made clear, in his treatment of the legate Walter of Albano, who had brought his pallium from Pope Urban II, that he did not recognize the authority of any papal legate in England. 3 As primate, he believed that the pope should not interfere directly in England’s rule, and that the archbishop of Canterbury should serve as papal legate in England. Just as both Eadmer and William of Malmesbury described Anselm being recognized by Pope Urban II as Pope of Another World, 4 Anselm called himself Primate of All England, Scotland, Ireland, and the Adjacent Isles, 5 according to Eadmer, and in a charter to Norwich Cathedral Priory Anselm called himself “archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of Great Britain and Ireland,” and the Church of Canterbury “the first of all churches in all England.” 6 Eadmer speaks of Canterbury as “totius Brittanie mater,” and the annalist at Winchester called Anselm “Anselmus Papa” in 1102. 7 In the course of his struggles with King Henry, Pope Paschal successively granted to Anselm and to his successors, the primacy and the pallium. 8 This primacy included Anselm’s jurisdiction over the see of York, which Paschal also granted to him. 9 That Anselm sought and achieved these goals seems to be validated by John of Salisbury, who wrote a life of Anselm some fifty years later. In it, he summarizes Anselm’s achievements: “How much Paschal granted to Anselm and bestowed upon him in his allotted time is clear from many examples, for he confirmed for him the primacy of Britain, which his predecessors had held from the time of Blessed Augustine. He also personally granted this privilege: that Anselm would be exempt from the authority of all [papal] legates as long as he lived. Morover,” John adds, he compelled Archbishop Gerard of York to profess obedience to Anselm “after his case was investigated,” following a case made and rendered in writing by Pope Alexander II “in the time of Lanfranc.” 10 Thus John, entrenched in the court of Anselm’s successor Archbishop Theobald of Bec, preserved Anselm’s achievements in writing, acknowledging, we must note, their origins in Anselm’s beliefs that the deeds of St. Augustine and his monks set the laws for England. Earlier, John confirmed that Urban had welcomed Anselm to Rome with the statement that “he should rightfully be respected as some pontiff and partriarch from another part of the world.” 11
