In the second letter, numbered in Migne iv. 110, the heading is, “Anselmus archiepiscopus, Roberto, Seyt, Edit, carissimis suis filiis, salutem et benedictionem Dei, quantum potest.” The persons addressed seem to have been devout women of some kind, living under the spiritual care of their confessor Robert. The letters tell us nothing as to the position of the persons addressed; they contain nothing but good advice which might be useful in any time or place; but the names seem to have greatly perplexed the German and French biographers of Anselm. Hasse (Anselm von Canterbury, i. 502) says, “Interessant ist besonders ein Brief an die Nonnen eines Klosters in Wales, wie es scheint,” and he adds in a note;

“Ich schliesse dies aus den Namen ‘Seit, Edit, Hydit, Luverim, Virgit, Godit’ die in der Ueberschrift genannt werden. Ob es wohl weibliche Namen sind? In dem Briefe v. 16 [iv. 110, Migne] werden nämlich dieselben Personen als filii (wenn dies nicht ein Druckfehler ist) angeredet, die hier [iii. 133, Migne] filiæ heissen. Ein celtisches Kloster war es jedenfalls; doch kann es auch in Irland oder Schottland gewesen sein.”

M. de Rémusat (S. Anselme de Cantorbéry, 177) had yet further lights;

“On suppose qu’une lettre adressée à Robert son ami et son fils très cher, et à ses sœurs et filles bien-aimées, qui, toutes, portent de bizarres noms, a pour objet d’encourager et de guider une congrégation de femmes qui, sous la direction de quelques missionnaires, essayait de se former dans une province Galloise.”

There is really something very amusing in the difficulties of these scholars over a list of people one of whom bears the very commonest of English female names at the time. M. de Rémusat at least knew the earlier name of Queen Matilda, and can bring it in where it is not to be found in his authorities. For he makes the abbess in the story of Hermann of Tournay (see vol. ii. p. [32], and [Appendix EE]) enlarge on “la beauté de la jeune Edithe,” though in that story she bears no name at all. “Godit” too, that is “Godgyth” or “Godgifu,” is clear enough; and a little knowledge of English nomenclature will carry us through most of the others, even though some of them may be rare or unique. “Seit” must he “Sigegyth,” a perfectly possible name. “Virgit” would seem to be “Wergyth,” also quite possible, while “Luverim,” which the manuscripts write in two or three ways, is surely a wild miswriting of Leofrune, of a bearer of which name we have heard something in N. C. vol. i. p. 352. “Hydit” is the only name on the list about which there can be any real difficulty; it is clearly one of the -gyth names, though it is not easy to see what the first half of the name is. It is perhaps a little odd when Anselm addresses Robert and his sisterhood as “filii” in the second letter, but the form is surely a lawful shortening of “filius et filiæ.” There is, one would think, a certain pleasing international unity in this picture of a company of Englishwomen, directed, it would seem, by a Norman priest, and so lovingly addressed by a Burgundian archbishop. Anyhow there is no need to doubt of the sex of Eadgyth and Godgyth, or to carry them off to Wales, Scotland, Ireland, or anywhere but the land of their own speech.

Anselm had other nuns and other devout women to write to and about, besides the bearers of these supposed puzzling names. There are several letters, as iii. 125, to a certain Abbess Eulalia. In iii. 70 he writes (in Henry the First’s time) to Athelis or Adeliza, Abbess of Wilton (it is again Wintonia in Migne’s text), comforting her during the banishment of William Giffard, bishop-elect of Winchester (see vol. ii. [p. 349]). More important is the letter (iii. 51) in which he sends the Archdeacon Stephen to hinder the abbess and nuns of Romsey from paying the worship of a saint to some person lately dead (“Tunc ex toto prohibeant ut nullus honor, qui alicui sancto exhiberi debet, exhibeatur ab illis, aut permittant ab aliquo exhiberi mortuo illi quem quidam volunt pro sancto haberi”). This reminds one of the story of Abbot Ulfcytel and the worship of Waltheof (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 598); but we need not suppose, with the old commentator in Migne, that the person worshipped was Waltheof himself. For it is added that the son of the dead man is to be driven out of the town, and Waltheof left no son. In iii. 84 he writes to Matilda, the first abbess of the house of the Trinity at Caen (see N. C. vol iv. p. 630), about her intended resignation of her abbey. On other monastic affairs there are several letters, as iii. 61, 118, about the affairs of the abbey of Saint Eadmund, whose prior bears the English name of Ælfhere. He speaks of their tribulations and the patience with which they bore them; the letters therefore most likely refer to the difficulties which followed the appointment of Abbot Robert (see p. 359). There are two letters (iii. 100, 108) addressed to a monk Ordwine, in the latter of which he is coupled with two others, Farman—​can he be the aged friend of Eadmer?--and Benjamin, which last name we should hardly have looked for. The first letter is a very important one; it deals with the subject of investitures, and distinctly shows that Anselm had no objection of his own to investiture by the King;

“Non ego prohibeo per me a rege dari investituras ecclesiarum, sed quia audivi apostolicum in magno concilio excommunicare laicos dantes illas investituras et accipientes, et qui accipientes sacrabunt, nolo communicare excommunicatis nec fieri excommunicatus.”

This letter contains also a good deal about the relations of laymen to churches as patrons or “custodes” (see p. 455, and N. C. vol. v. p. 501). In iii. 83, when already Archbishop, Anselm writes to Eustace, the father of Geoffrey a monk of Bec, at his son’s instance, rebuking him for a singular kind of bigamy. His wife, the mother of Geoffrey, had become a nun, and he himself had taken a vow; but had nevertheless married a second wife. Anselm argues that, whether he had taken a vow or not, still, though his wife had become a nun, it is unlawful for him to marry again during her lifetime. Of a more strictly domestic nature are the letters to his sister Richera or Richeza, and her husband Burgundius (iii. 63, 66, 67). Burgundius is meditating a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; and he exhorts him so to order his affairs before he goes that his wife may not lose her estate in case he dies by the way.

Anselm’s correspondence with royal and princely persons in various parts is very large. There are many letters to King Henry, in one of which (iii. 79) he cannot keep himself from the established pun on the name of Henry’s people. He prays, “Ut Deus vos et vestra sic regat et protegat in gloria temporalis regni super Anglos, quatenus in æterna felicitate regnare faciat inter angelos.”

He writes (iv. 81) a letter of rebuke to his old friend Earl Hugh, about the captivity of one monk of Clugny, and the irregular burial of another. He warns the Earl frankly; “Familiariter dico vobis, sicut homini cujus honorem et utilitatem multum amo, quia si non feceritis quod dico, inde blasphemabimini; et ego etiam si non fecero quod ecclesiastica disciplina præcipit inde fieri, a multis blasphemabor.” To his former enemy Count Robert of Meulan he writes a letter during his second exile which is given by Eadmer (Hist. Nov. 82), where the Count is addressed as “dominus et amicus;” in another (iv. 99) he is advanced to “dominus et amicus carissimus,” and is addressed as “vestra dilectio.” The subject of the letter is the endless dispute between York and Canterbury. The mention of the younger Thomas as archbishop-elect fixes the date to about 1108.