ABSTRACT
According to Eadmer, after King William Rufus heard that Anselm had, at the English bishops’ request, written a prayer to be said throughout all England that God might, of his goodness, put it into the heart of the king to appoint a pastor for the vacant archbishopric of Canterbury, one of the “princes of the land” took William Rufus aside to advise him. 1 The baron told him that Anselm was a man of such holiness as was suitable for the office. “His love is on God alone, his desire … on nothing temporal,” adding that the archbishopric was the last thing that Anselm wanted. This very perceptive magnate well understood the topos of reluctance—and probably understood Anselm as well.
