realities rather than forms; not
given to disputations and the sports of logical tournaments, but to
solid inquiries after truth. The universities had not then arisen, but a
hundred years later he would have been their ornament, like Thomas
Aquinas and Bonaventura.

Like other Norman abbeys, the abbey of Bec had after the Conquest
received lands in England, and it became one of the duties of the abbot
to look after its temporal interests. Hence Anselm was obliged to make
frequent visits to England, where his friendship with Lanfranc was
renewed, and where he made the acquaintance of distinguished prelates
and abbots and churchmen, among others of Eadmer, his future biographer.
It seems that he also won the hearts of the English nobility by his
gentleness and affability, so that they rendered to him uncommon
attentions, not only as a great ecclesiastic who had no equal in
learning, but as a man whom they could not help loving.

The life of Anselm very nearly corresponded with that of the Conqueror,
who died in 1087, being five years older; and he was Abbot of Bec during
the whole reign of William as King of England. There was nothing
particularly memorable in his life as abbot aside from his theological
studies. It was not until he was elevated to the See of Canterbury, on
the death of Lanfranc, that his memorable career became historical. He
anticipated Thomas Becket in his contest to secure the liberties of the
Church against the encroachments of the Norman kings. The cause of the
one was the cause of the other; only, Anselm was trained in monastic
seclusion, and Becket amid the tumults and intrigues of a court. The one
was essentially an ecclesiastic and theologian; the other a courtier and
statesman. The former was religious, and the latter secular in his
habits and duties. Yet both fought the same great battle, the essential
principle of which was the object of contention between the popes and
the emperors of Germany,--that pertaining to the right of investiture,
which may be regarded, next to the Crusades, as the great outward event
of the twelfth century. That memorable struggle for supremacy was not
brought to a close until Innocent III made the kings of the earth his
vassals, and reigned without a rival in Christendom. Gregory VII had
fought heroically, but he died in exile, leaving to future popes the
fruit of his transcendent labors.

Lanfranc died in 1089,--the ablest churchman of the century next to the