5. To Henry, The Monk.
The Letters of St. Anselm
Lanfranc appointed him bishop of Rochester as Hernost's successor; see Ep 1. He died 7 March 1108. He was a trusty and faithful servant to both Lanfranc and Anselm: see Vita Gundulfi, PL 159:813-836; im proved text by R. Thomson, Toronto Mediaeval Texts (Toronto, 1977);
English translation by the nuns of Mailing Abbey (West Mailing Kent, 1968, second revised edition, 1983); R.A.L. Smith, 'The Place of Gundulf in the Anglo-Norman Church', EHR 58 (1943) 257-272; Frohlich,
'Bischdfliche Kollegen', AA 1 (1969) 241-244; Barlow, English Church, 64f and passim); M. Ruud, 'Gundulf of Rochester', Anglo-Norman
Studies XI (1989) 245-260.
2. Ps 136:5.
3. For Anselm's father see VA 3-4, 7; Rule, I, 9,63; Southern, Anselm, 3-12; Brian P. McGuire, 'Love, friendship, and sex in the eleventh century: The experience of Anselm', Studia Theologica 28 (1974) 113-116.
4. Jn 21:16.
5 . Dom Herluin was the bearer of this letter; see Ep 5.
6. For Lanfranc, the nephew of the Archbishop, see Epp 25, 30, 31.
7. Osbern, monk of Bee, sixty-sixth in the Bee profession roll, was at Canterbury.
8 . Osbern, monk of Bee, ninety-eighth in the Bee profession roll, died shortly after his profession about 1071; see VA 16.20; McGuire (n.3)
121-124.
9. Henry, monk of Bee; see Ep 5.
5. TO HENRY, THE MONK.
Anselm assures Henry, at Christ Church Canterbury, of their continual mutual friendship and love, no matter inhere divine disposition may send either of them; he recommends Herluin, the bearer of letters 4 and 5, begs him to pray for his deceased friend Osbern, and informs him of a similar letter being sent to Gundulf.
TO HIS FELLOW-MONK AND MOST BELOVED BROTHER HENRY1:
BROTHER ANSELM, GREETING.
DEARLY BELOVED, the more report testifies to me that your behavior towards everybody is daily increasing in honorable conduct and the strict observance of holiness, the more indeed your friend's heart is inflamed by the desire of seeing what he hears by loving, and of enjoying what he loves by hearing about it. But since I do not hesitate to believe that we are loved, each by the other in no dissimilar fashion, so also I do not doubt that we are each longed for
The Letters of St. Anselm by the other in the same way. For to those whose minds the fire of love welds together it is not groundlessly irksome if the place they live keeps their bodies apart. But since whether we live or die we are not our own but the Lord's,2 we must direct our minds to what the Lord to whom we be long wills to do with us, rather than to what we, who do not belong to ourselves, want. Let us therefore so preserve our longing for brotherly charity that we observe the com mand of the heavenly will. And let us so display the obe dience of submission which divine ordinance demands that we may keep the warmth of the love which divine dispen sation bestows on us. For we cannot submit to God's rule for our own benefit any better than by wishing to obey his will through our own ordering of affairs. Accordingly, since we both have with us many people by whom we are loved and whom we love in return, let us, while enjoying their affection with reasonable pleasure, prepare ourselves to en joy them with joyful reason and pray fervently that some day, being all present together with both present and absent friends, we may be able to enjoy God himself. When, guid ed by divine clemency, we reach the homeland towards which we are struggling, not, as it were, by the same path, we shall come together more joyfully, as if recalled from different places of exile. I do not thus exhort your effort, dearest friend, fearing that you do not act this way, but desiring that you may unfailingly continue to do what you are doing well.
I commend to you Dom Herluin,3 our beloved friend, who also loves us, as you may learn from his conversation, and who can tell you better than I could do in the short space of a letter about matters concerning me and for which I beg your indulgence. Consider as your own the letter I sent to Dom Gundulf, by changing his name to yours and yours to his. For anything our love, whether revealing itself or requesting something, writes either to you or to him, it says the very same both to you and to him. But since for the soul of Osbern, our deceased brother, dearly-beloved by me, I
The Letters of St. Anselm
can neither implore God nor beg men for as much as would satisfy me, I again impress upon you that whatever I write to Dom Gundulf about him, I also say to you.
The lord abbot4 and all the brothers of our congregation greet you and Dom Gundulf, giving great thanks for your gifts, but even more for your excellent conduct and good intentions. Farewell, and consider the soul of Osbern,5 my other self, not as his, but as mine. c. 1071
NOTES 1. Henry, a monk of Bee, seventy-fourth in the Bee profession roll, fol lowed Lanfranc to Canterbury. Around 1074 he was appointed prior of Christ Church Canterbury; see Ep 58 and Heads, 33. In 1096 he was elected third abbot of Battle. He died 18 June 1102. See also Epp 7,
17, 24, 33, 40, 42, 50, 63, 64, 73,140, 141, 182; E. Searle, ed„ The Chroni cle of Battle Abbey, Oxford Medieval Texts (1980) 102, 104, 106, 116,
168-170; H. Clover, 'Alexander II's letter 'Accipimus a quibusdam' and its relationship with the Canterbury forgeries', in La Normandie
Benedictine (Lille, 1967) 434, 437-438.
2. Rm 14:8.
3. Herluin was a monk of Caen who had come with Archbishop Lan franc to Christ Church Canterbury. In 1100 he was made abbot of Glastonbury, where he ruled till 1118 see Heads, 51. He received, or is mentioned in, a number of Anselm's letters: Epp 5, 7, 8, 17, 35,
43, 51, 60, 69, 74.
4. Abbot Herluin, of noble Norman birth, founded the monastery of Bee in 1034 and ruled it till his death on 26 August 1078. See Vita Herluini in J.A. Robinson, Gilbert Crispin (Cambridge, 1911) 87-110; trans. S.
Vaughn, The Abbey of Bee and the Anglo-Norman State 1034-1136 (Woodbridge 1981) 67-86; A. Poree, Histoire de I'Abbaye de Bee, 2 Vols (Evreux,
1901).
5. See Ep 4.