The following article is from Medieval France: An Encyclopedia , eds. W. Kibler and G. Zinn. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc, 1995.
ANSELM OF BEC (OR CANTERBURY, OR AOSTA) (1033-1109). Anselm of Bec was born in Aosta, Italy. After the death of his mother he left for Burgundy and France, where he was attracted to the monastic life and entered the remote monastery of Bec in Normandy in 1059. His fellow-countryman Lanfranc of Pavia was prior at Bec and taught grammar and logic. Anselm became Lanfranc's student, then his assistant, and finally a fellow teacher. When, in 1063, Lanfranc became abbot of Saint-Étienne, Caen (before becoming archbishop of Canterbury in 1070), Anselm succeeded him as prior at Bec and became abbot after the death of the monastery's founder, Herluin, in 1078. In his capacity of abbot he paid frequent visits to England to inspect the lands owned by Bec. While at Bec Anselm wrote several works of a mixed devotional and philosophical nature: De grammatico (between 1060 and 1063), a linguistico-philosophical treatise about the term "grammarian"; Monologion , a soliloquy on proving the existence of God by reason alone; Proslogion , an improved version of the Monologion ; and the three treatises De veritate (On truth), De libertate arbitrii (On the freedom of will) and De casu diaboli (On the fall of the devil). During this period he also wrote his Orationes sive meditationes (Prayers and meditations).
In 1093 Anselm succeeded Lanfranc (d. 1089) as archbishop of Canterbury. Before long Anselm clashed with King William Rufus over issues such as church property, the right of appointment to ecclesiastical offices, and the recognition of Urban II as pope. Another contentious issue was Anselm's wish to travel to Rome to receive the token of his episcopal dignity (the pallium ) directly from the pope. In the end Anselm did not go, yet he did succeed in preventing the king from usurping the right of investiture. There followed a period of relative calm during which Anselm published his Epistola de incarnatione verbi (Letter on the incarnation of the Word) in 1094 and started work on his magnum opus: Cur deus homo (Why God became man). In the meantime, Anselm's relations with the king had once more become strained; in 1098 he went in exile to Rome, where he completed Cur deus homo . He also attended the council of Bari, at which he defended the "double procession" of the Holy Spirit (from the Father and the Son) against the Greeks (later published as De processione Spiritus Sanctus [On the procession of the Holy Spirit]).
Following William Rufus's death in 1100, Anselm returned to England. After a peaceful interval, Anselm collided with the new king Henry I over old issues such as homage and investiture. From 1103 until 1106 he lived in exile, mainly in France, and returned to England only after a compromise had been reached with the king. He died in 1109 at Canterbury, after having completed in 1108 his De concordia (On the concordance [of foreknowledge and predestination and the grace of God with free will]).
Anselm's writings are marked by a balance between rational argumentation and contemplative intensity. Claiming in his Proslogion to prove the existence of God by one single argument and by reason alone, he takes his starting-point in a negation of that existence. This negation has to be seen as a dialectical/intellectual game within the monastic context in which it serves the aim of bringing out the presence of the divine. The fool who denies the existence of God is met with the argument that God is that than which no greater can be thought. The logical implications of this formula are such as to exclude the possibility of God's non-existence. As a consequence, God's presence, which in the beginning of the treatise had been phrased in terms of monastic desperation, frustrated by an inaccessible light, gains clarity and offers joy to the meditating mind. In his Cur deus homo Anselm follows the same pattern. The accusation by the infidels that the Christian concept of incarnation is primitive is met by an analysis of the beauty of God's order. God is bound by intrinsic necessity to keep his order intact and save man, while man for his part is bound to make satisfaction for his sin. The two elements come together in the necessary appearance of a God-man, who is no other than Christ.
Anselm's dense style of argumentation is further developed in his treatises on truth, on the will, and on the fall of the devil. In conformity with his monastic way of life, it is the real truth and the real existence of justice that count most. As a result the freedom of will is the freedom to do the right thing. By the same token the freedom to sin turns out to lack a real object--injustice having no subsistence of its own--and therefore to be illusionary.
Although Anselm has always been held in high esteem, his philosophical and theological influence has been limited mainly to the so-called ontological proof of God's existence and the argument of Cur deus homo . The Orationes sive mediationes , on the other hand, were widely read all through the Middle Ages. [Burcht Pranger]