TO-DAY IN HISTORY

Southland Times, Issue 20664, 20 April 1929, Page 6

TO-DAY IN HISTORY

APRIL 20. Died: Eliza Barton, “the Maid of Kent,” executed, Tyburn, 1534; Prince Eugene of Savoy, military commander, Vienna, 1736; John Lewis Petit, surgeon, Paris, 1760; Robert Mudie, writer, London, 1842. APRIL 21. Born: Prince George of Denmark, consort of Anne, Queen of England, 1653; James Harris, Earl of Malmesbury, statesman, Salisbury, 1746; Samuel Hibbert Ware M.D., scientist, Manchester, 1782; Reginald Heber, poet,Bishop of Calcutta, Malpas. 1783; Thomas Wright, historian, 1810. Died: Alexander the Great, Alexandria, B.C. 323; Diogenes the cynic, Corinth. B.C. 323; Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, Canterbury, 1109; Peter Abelard, French scholar, 1142; Jean Racine, dramatic poet, 1699; David Mallet, poet, London, 1765. ARCHBISHOP ANSELM. Few English prelates have exercised so great an influence on lhe politics, literature and learning of their age, as Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. He was born at Aosta in Piedmont about the year 1033 and exhibited from a very early age a strongly marked love for learning and a monastic life. As these tastes were sternly opposed by his father, young Anselm secretly left his home and after wandering in Burgundy and France for about three years, he at length reached Bee in Normandy, and entered himself in the school which had just been rendered famous by the teaching of Lanfranc. Here he soon distinguished himself by the rapidity with which he acquired learning, but when pressed to become a teacher himself he preferred the monastic state and became a monk in the abbey of Bee in the year 1060; six years afterwards he was chosen prior of that abbey, and in 1078 he was still further advanced to the high office of abbot. During this period he wrote most of his important works, nearly all of a theological character, which soon spread his fame through Western Europe. His piety and numerous virtues were at the same time so remarkable that the brethren in the abbey of Bee believed him to be capable of working miracles. His friend Lanfranc had been made Archbishop of Canterbury and soon after Anselm became abbot of Bee he paid a visit to England and passed some time at Canterbury. He again visited England in 1092 at the invitation of Hugh, Earl of Chester, who chose to establish monks from Bee in his newly-founded monastery at Chester. Anseltn was recalled by Henry 1., and taken into favour, but he now had become the unflinching champion of the temporal power of the church of Rome and we can hardly excuse him for being himself the cause of many of his quarrels with the Crown, since in spite of all King Henry was willing to do to conciliate the church, Anselm remained on no better terms with him than with his predecessor. On Anselm’s return to England began the great dispute on the question of investiture. The prelates of the church had been accustomed to receive from the hands of the sovereign the investiture of the ring and crozier, by which the temporalities of the see were understood to be conveyed. The pope had been long seeking to deprive the king of this right, the question it involved being simply whether, the clergy in England should hold their estates, and be. the subjects of the king or the pope. The council of Rome 1099, at which Anselm was present, declared against the secular power, « and decided that any layman presuming to grant such investiture, or any priest accepting it, should thereby incur sentence of excommunication. On Anselm’s return to England it would have been his duty to receive (he investiture from the new’ monarch, but when required to do so he absolutely refused, referring the king to the acts of the council. Henry was equally firm in withstanding this new encroachment of the court of Rome, and the question was finally referred to the new pope, and Anselm again returned to Home where he had been preceded by an envoy from the king. Fascacius 11. decided against the king, but Anselm on his way back was met by a message from King Henry intimating that he would not be allowed to enter England, and he again returned to Lyons. The dispute between the king and the pope was at last settled by mutual concession, the secular sovereign being allowed the right, of exacting homage, but. not investing, and Anselm returned to England in the Autumn of 1106. He spent the remainder of his days in reforming abuses in the church and in writing books, and died “laid in sackcloth and ashes,” on April 21, 1109, in his seventy-sixth year. With the exception of his violent and unyielding advocacy of the temporal power of the church, Anselm's character was no less exemplary as a prelate than as a man. He was a person of great intellectual powers, and it was to him really that we owe the introduction of metaphysical reasoning into theology, and therefore a new school for the latter science. His works have always held a very high rank in the Catholic Church.