ABSTRACT
When Abbot Anselm visited England in 1080, Archbishop Lanfranc, Eadmer tells us, “was still somewhat green as an Englishman—adhuc quasi rudis Anglus,” 1 even though ten years had passed since his consecration. But Eadmer insists a second time that Lanfranc was still “like a new citizen of England—ille sicuti novus Angliae civis,” even at this late date. 2 Lanfranc himself had called himself “a new Englishman—novus Anglus,” in a letter to Pope Alexander II 3 written just after his consecration. Eadmer may have been quoting this letter. But it seems rather doubtful that Lanfranc was still green in 1080. Nevertheless, Eadmer characterizes him as such, and as such asking Anselm’s advice concerning an archiepiscopal predecessor at Canterbury, St. Elphege. As Eadmer explained, Lanfranc, winnowing through the customs of England, rejecting some and accepting others, 4 just as Pope Gregory I had instructed his predecessor Archbishop Augustine to do, 5 was not sure whether the murdered Elphege—who was killed because he failed to pay off his pagan kidnappers—should be accepted as a legitimate martyr-saint or not. Anselm replied that “we must look at the case interpreting it historically,” not for the reason (his refusal to make a ransom payment) of his murder alone, but for another more ancient reason—causam … beati Aelfegi historialiter intuentes videmus non illam solam, sed aliam fuisse ista antiquiore. “It was not only because he refused to buy himself off with money,” Anselm continued, “but also because like a Christian by his own free will—Christiana libertate—he stood out against his pagan persecutors, and tried to convert them from their unfaith,” as they burnt down Canterbury—and Christ Church as well, “putting innocent citizens to a horrible death.” So as Anselm explained the case, it was for Elphege’s efforts to convert these pagans to Christianity—an action chosen through his own free will—that they “seized him and put him to death with cruel torture.” 6 Thus Anselm, placing Archbishop Elphege in a historical context, seems to see him as part of the line of successors to St. Augustine, converting the pagan inhabitants of England as had Canterbury’s original archbishop, recalling our discussion above on how Anselm viewed history. Anselm singled out Elphege’s free will choice to convert the pagans, recalling his own treatise on Free Will and its extension in De Concordia, in which he had argued that human choices shaped the future, and were made freely, even though God foreknew what those choices could be, in the simultaneity of eternal time. Elphege’s free will decision, Anselm seems to imply by considering it historically, advanced the historical cause of Canterbury. Anselm went on to give a theological explanation as well: that Elphege died for Christ and thus for both Truth and Justice, as did John the Baptist. Recall that his treatise On Truth argued that God was both Truth and Justice. So, like St. John, whose example he followed, Elphege must be venerated as a martyr. Both Anselm’s reasons for venerating Elphege—the historical reason and the theological reason—correspond to what we have discussed above as Bec ways of thought on history, and Anselm’s theological writing at Bec. Lanfranc agreed with Anselm, and ordered the Bec/Canterbury monk Osbern to write up Elphege’s life in prose and song. 7
