ABSTRACT

Anselm belongs to a tradition of learning with its roots in the early church fathers and the ancient schools of Greece and Rome. Although much important material had been lost or mislaid prior to the early medieval period (most of Aristotle and almost all of Plato), what remained enabled the development of the teaching of the liberal arts in the schools. This paucity of material meant a focus on relatively few texts and encouraged the development of a limited, standardised curriculum around the seven liberal arts (the trivium and quadrivium). Anselm stood in this tradition as a Catholic and a monk, for whom the secular learning of the trivium had a particular purpose as a preamble to the specialised studies of the quadrivium and, more importantly, to the study of sacred scripture.1 Particular authority was given in the early medieval period to Augustine and Boethius, who not only exerted a profound influence on theological thought, but also provided much of the foundation for the study of the liberal arts. Like Boethius, Anselm was greatly influenced by Augustine. But he followed Boethius along a specific form of Augustinianism that gave great weight to a limited Aristotelianism based on Aristotle’s logical works. This was not imposed on Augustine from without, but recognized the importance of dialectic in Augustine’s own thought. It was this Boethian/Aristotelian outlook that coloured Anselm’s Augustinianism, his view of the function of grammar, dialectic and rhetoric in the education of Christians, and his appreciation of how faith and reason interacted in the understanding of the faithful Catholic scholar. It also assisted him in developing his capacity to harmonise, without confusing, theology and dialectic.