His sympathy and humaneness shone out a thousand times. There is the story Eadmer tells of an abbot, who came to Anselm at Bec, and deplored that he could do no good with the boys at his monastery. “In spite of all we do they are perverse and incorrigible,” said the abbot, despondently. “We are always beating them, but they only get worse: and though we constrain them in every way we can, it’s all of no use.” “Constrain them!” answered Anselm. “Tell me, my lord abbot, when you plant a tree in your garden, do you so tie it up that it cannot stretch forth its branches? And if you did so, what sort of tree would it become a few years hence when you released it? But this is just what you do with your boys. You cramp them in with terrors and threats and blows, so that it is quite impossible for them to grow or enjoy any freedom. And kept down in this way their temper is spoilt by evil thoughts of hatred and suspicion against you, and they put down all you do to ill-nature and dislike. Why are you so harsh with them? Are they not human beings of the same nature as yourself? How would you like to be treated as you treat them?” The abbot was finally persuaded that he had been all wrong. “We have wandered,” he said, “from the way of truth, and the light of discretion hath not shone on us.”
There is another story which gives Anselm’s pity and feeling of kinship with the whole animal creation. It was when he was archbishop, and was riding one day from Windsor to Hayes that a hare chased by the dogs of some of his company took refuge under the feet of his horse. Anselm at once pulled up and forebade the hare to be molested, and when his escort laughed gleefully at the capture, the archbishop said: “You may laugh, but it is no laughing matter for this poor unhappy creature, which is like the soul of a departing man pursued by evil spirits. Mortal enemies attack it, and it flies to us for its life: and while it turns to us for safety we laugh.” He rode on, and in a loud voice forbade the dogs to touch the hare; which, glad to be at liberty, darted off to the fields and woods.
That Anselm never wavered in his tenderness for the weak and oppressed may be learnt from the great Church Synod held at Westminster in 1102—a council summoned on the strong request of the archbishop. The slave trade was specially denounced at this council as a “wicked trade used hitherto in England, by which men are sold like brute animals,” and a canon was drawn up to that effect.
Anselm’s enduring courage and desire for truth are conspicuous all his life. He fought single-handed against both William and Henry, and no weight of numbers, no world-wise talk from other prelates could make him budge. If he withstood the Red King and his court at Rockingham, equally firm was he in withstanding the Norman barons who were inclined to break away from their sworn allegiance to Henry. No Englishman by birth or blood was Anselm, for he was born at Aosta, and spent the greater part of his life on the Continent, but he brought to England the finest gifts of life, and gave them freely in service to England’s liberty. He withstood an absolutism that threatened the total enslavement of the nation, and the witness he bore to liberty was taken up and renewed in the centuries that followed. “Anselm was truly a great man. So good that he was held a saint in his very lifetime, so meek that even his enemies honoured him, so wise that he was the foremost thinker of his day, and the forerunner of the greatest philosophers of ours.” (F. York Powell.)
Thomas of Canterbury
The Defender of the Poor 1162–1170
Authorities: Benedict of Peterborough; Garnier; William FitzStephen; John of Salisbury; Herbert of Bosham; Alan of Tewkesbury; Edward Grim; Roger of Pontigny; William of Canterbury; Robert of Cricklade—Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, 7 vols.; Thomas Saga (Icelandic), translated by Magnusson; Giraldus Cambrensis; Gervase of Canterbury; William of Newburgh; Roger of Hoveden, III.; Ralph Diceto (Rolls Series); Froude, R. H.—Remains, Vol. 3; Life of Becket, by Canon J. C. Robertson; Life of St. Thomas Becket, by John Morris, S.J.; Stubbs—Constitutional History, Vol. I; Freeman—Historical Essays, 1st Series; W. H. Hutton—English History by Contemporary Writers—St. Thomas of Canterbury.
THOMAS A BECKET
(From an old Engraving after Van Eyck.)