89. TO LANFRANC,: Archbishop Of Canterbury.
The Letters of St. Anselm
89. TO LANFRANC,
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.
Abbot Anselm thanks Archbishop Lanfrancfor the money he sent to Bee during their bitter need and asks him for information concerning various properties be longing to the monastery.
TO HIS LORD AND REVEREND FATHER, ARCHBISHOP LANFRANC:
BROTHER ANSELM, SERVANT OF HIS FELLOW SERVANTS', THE
BROTHERS OF BEC, WISHING HIM WITH THESE SAME FELLOW-
MONKS ENDURING PROSPERITY IN THIS LIFE AND ETERNAL
HAPPINESS IN THE LIFE TO COME.
WE FOREVER GIVE THANKS for the various benefits of your paternal highness. Even if we do not always express it, yet we keep it always in our hearts. And indeed, as it is written, a helper in tribulation [is a helper] in favorable times,2 the blessing of your generosity, that is, the twenty pounds which Dom Abbot Herbert3 brought us recently, came like the rain of winter and spring,4 at such an opportune moment when we were straitened by such great poverty that when everything had been very speedily consumed with relish there remained no greater trace of our abundance than when in Pharaoh's dream the full ears of corn and the fat cattle had been devoured by the barren and, so to speak, starv ing consumers.5 It has sustained us, but only to the point that we are not utterly lacking everything.
To be sure, the expensive purchase of beans and oats throughout nearly the entire period since the death of Dom
Abbot Herluin,6 as well as the purchase of lands which we likewise bought after his death, drained us excessively. I pass over the large bell which we improvidently began [to cast] out of one cracked and another out of tune. As we had to add much more metal and pay more than we had planned we could scarcely finish it. We spent more in other ways on many things beyond what had been planned. Indeed the year7 we have just managed to emerge from has almost buried us with problems and the one we are entering
The Letters of St. Anselm threatens us far more seriously with a deficit of many things.
Yet may God who looks down from heaven upon the children of men* be mindful of us and turn to us the hearts of those in abundance.
Besides, although we are always in need of your advice and help, at the moment we crave your generous and speedy financial aid. [At the death of Archbishop John9 we sought the land of Ramsonetum10 as part of the gift of Wil liam, son of Osbern. But when the king questioned whether he had granted this gift himself, we found absolutely no body who remembered it. If you can remember anything about this grant from the king, either when that same Wil liam gave us what he possessed in the district of Brionne11 or when he gave anything to our monastery, or when the afore-mentioned archbishop gave what he gave at Pont
Authou12: insofar as it appears advantageous to you, inform us and the king. Tell us also whether the same archbishop made a donation to us before making one to the bishopric of Avranches, which he did twelve years ago;13 and if you know how the tithes possessed by Fulbert, clerk of Liveth, which Dom Abbot Herluin held from Bishop Hugh of Lisieux,14 came under the jurisdiction of our monastery; con cerning all these matters we are commanded to plead our case in the king's presence15 on the Sunday after the Feast of Saint Andrew.16] c. 1080.
NOTES 1. Modeled on servus servorum Dei. By this Anselm intimates that he is now abbot of Bee.
2. Cf. Ps 9:10.
3. This is perhaps Abbot Herbert of Fontenay, who was a monk of Caen 4. Hos 6:3.
5. Cf. Gen 41:1-31.
6. 26 August 1078; see Ep 87.
7. 1079/80.
8. Ps 52:3.
The Letters of St. Anselm
9. Archbishop John of Rouen died on 9 September 1079. Before his pro motion to the see of Rouen he had been Bishop of Avranches from 1060-1069.
10. A tract of land, possibly close to Bee.
11. Brionne, a district where the dioceses of Rouen, Evreux and Lisieux meet. The monastery was founded on the edge of it.
12. Pont Authou, the bridge crossed the river Risle a short distance from Brionne and the Abbey of Bee.
13. In 1069 John was translated from Avranches to Rouen.
14. Hugh was Bishop of Lisieux from 1049/50-1077.
15. William the Conqueror, not in his capacity as King of England or Duke of Normandy, but as Count of Brionne.
16. 30 November 1080. A later revision leaves out the lines between brackets (AOO 111:216, 11. 26-37) and in their place has: in what af fects the interests of our church, we have considered it necessary to charge the bearer of this letter to tell you about them by word of mouth. When you have learned these things, if you know any thing which could help us in this matter we beg that your holiness should strive to inform us as quickly as possible concerning all these matters.