[1052] Ib. “Solito more cunctis se jucundum et affabilem exhibebat, moresque singulorum in quantum sine peccato poterat, in se suscipiebat.” Eadmer draws out the apostolic rule at some length, and gives specimens of Anselm’s discourses to these different classes.
[1053] Vit. Ans. i. 6. 47. “Non eo, ut aliis mos est, docendi modo exercebat, sed longe aliter singula quæque sub vulgaribus et notis exemplis proponens, solidæque rationis testimonio fulciens, ac remota omni ambiguitate, in mentibus auditorum deponens.”
[1054] Ib. “Lætabatur ergo quisquis illius colloquio uti poterat, quoniam in eo quodcumque petebatur divinum consilium in promptu erat.” He had said yet more strongly, “Corda omnium miro modo in amorem ejus vertebantur, et ad eum audiendum famelica aviditate replebantur.”
[1055] Ib. 48. He became “pro sua excellenti fama totius Angliæ partibus notus, ac pro reverenda sanctitate charus cunctis effectus.” And directly after, “Familiaris ergo ei dehinc Anglia facta est, et prout diversitas causarum ferebat, ab eo frequentata.”
[1056] No strictly physical miracle is alleged to have been wrought by Anselm’s own hands; but several stories are told by Eadmer in the sixth chapter of the first book of the Life, in which cures were believed to be done by water in which he had washed, and the like. In another class of stories in the third chapter, the bodily wants of Anselm or his friends are supplied in an unexpected way, but without any physical miracle. Thus the well-known Walter Tirel, entertaining Anselm, makes excuses for the lack of fish. The saint announces that a fine sturgeon is on the road, and it presently comes.
Eadmer’s book of the Miracles of Anselm, which forms No. xvi. in Dr. Liebermann’s collection, consists of wonders of the usual kind at or after Anselm’s death.
[1057] See N. C. vol. iv. pp. 704, 713.
[1058] Eadmer, Vit. Ans. i. 6. 47. “Non fuit comes in Anglia seu comitissa, vel ulla persona potens, quæ non judicaret se sua coram Deo merita perdidisse, si contingeret se Anselmo abbati Beccensi gratiam cujusvis officii tunc temporis non exhibuisse.”
[1059] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 491. So Hist. Nov. 15, “Certe amicus meus familiaris ab antiquo comes Cestrensis Hugo fuit.”
[1060] Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 14. “Jam enim, quodam quasi præsagio mentes quorundam tangebantur, et licet clanculo, nonnulli adinvicem loquebantur, eum, si Angliam iret, archiepiscopum Cantuariensem fore.” William of Malmesbury (Gest. Pont. 78), “Erat tamen spes nonnulla his malis posse imponi finem, si quando Cantuariensem archiepiscopum viderent, qui esset os omnium, vexillifer prævius, umbo publicus. Spargebaturque in vulgus rumor, haud equidem sine mente et numine Dei, ut arbitror, Anselmum fore archiepiscopum, virum penitus sanctum, anxie doctum, felicem futuram hujus hominis benedictionibus Angliam.”