, archbishop of Canterbury in the reigns of William Rufus and Henry I was an Italian by birth, and born in 1033 at Aost, or Augusta, a town
, archbishop of Canterbury in the reigns of
William Rufus and Henry I was an Italian by birth, and
born in 1033 at Aost, or Augusta, a town at the foot of the
Alps, belonging to the duke of Savoy. He was descended
of a considerable family: his father’s name was Gundulphus, and his mother’s Hemeberga. From early life his
religious cast of mind was so prevalent, that, at the age of
fifteen, he offered himself to a monastery, but was refused,
lest his father should have been displeased. After, however, he had gone through a course of study, and travelled
for some time in France and Burgundy, he took the monastic habit in the abbey of Bee in Normandy, of which
Lanfranc, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, was then
prior. This was in 1060, when he was twenty-seven years
old. Three years after, when Lanfranc was made abbot of
Caen, Anselm succeeded him in the priory of Bee, and on
the death of the abbot, was raised to that office. About
the year 1092, Anselm came over into England, by the
inritation of Hugh, earl of Chester, who requested his assistance in his sickness. Soon after his arrival, William
Rufus, falling sick at Gloucester, was much pressed to fill
up the see of Canterbury. The king, it seems, at that
time, was much influenced by one Kanulph, a clergyman,
who, though a Norman and of mean extraction, had a great
share in the king’s favour, and at last rose to the post of
prime minister. This man, having gained the king’s ear
by flattering his vices, misled him in the administration,
and put him upon several arbitrary and oppressive expedients. Among others, one was, to seize the revenues of
a church, upon the death of a bishop or abbot; allowing
the dean and chapter, or convent, but a slender pension
for maintenance. But the king now falling sick, began to
be touched with remorse of conscience, and among other
oppressions, was particularly afflicted for the injury he had
done the church and kingdom in keeping the see of Canterbury, and some others, vacant. The bishops and other
great men therefore took this opportunity to entreat the
king to fill up the vacant sees; and Anselm, who then
lived in the neighbourhood of Gloucester, being sent for
to court, to assist the king in his illness, was considered
by the king as a proper person, and accordingly nominated
to the see of Canterbury, which had been four years vacant,
and was formerly filled by his old friend and preceptor Lanfranc. Anselm was with much difficulty prevailed upon to
accept this dignity, and evidently foresaw the difficulties of
executing his duties conscientiously under such a sovereign
as William Rufus. Before his consecration, however, he gained a promise from the king for the restitution of all the lands
which were in the possession of that see in Lanfranc’s time.
And thus having secured the temporalities of the archbishopric, and done homage to the king, he was consecrated with great solemnity on the 4th of December, 1093.
Soon after his consecration, the king intending to wrest
the duchy of Normandy from his brother Robert, and endeavouring to raise what money he could for that purpose,
Anselm made him an offer of five hundred pounds; which
the king thinking too little, refused to accept, and the archbishop thereby fell under the king’s displeasure. About
that time, he had a dispute with the bishop of London,
touching the right of consecrating churches in a foreign
diocese. The next year, the king being ready to embark
for Normandy, Anseim waited upon him, and desired his
leave to convene a national synod, in which the disorders
of the church and state, and the general dissolution of
manners, might be remedied: but the king refused his
request, and even treated him so roughly, that the archbishop and his retinue withdrew from the court, the licentious manners of which, Anselm, who was a man of inflexible piety, had censured with great freedom. Another
cause of discontent between him and the archbishop, was
Anselm’s desiring leave to go to Rome, to receive the pall
from pope Urban II. whom the king of England did not
acknowledge as pope, being more inclined to favour the
party of his competitor Guibert. To put an end to this
misunderstanding, a council, or convention, was held at
Rockingham castle, March 11, 1095. In this assembly,
Anselm, opening his cause, told them with what reluctancy he had accepted the archbishopric; that he had
made an express reserve of his obedience to pope Urban;
and that he was now brought under difficulties upon that
score. He therefore desired their advice how to act in
such a manner, as neither to fail in his allegiance to the
king, nor in his duty to the holy see. The bishops were
of opinion, that he ought to resign himself wholly to the
king’s pleasure. They told him, there was a general
complaint against him, for intrenching upon the king’s
prerogative; and that it would be prudence in him to wave
his regard for Urban; that bishop (for they would not call him pope) being in no condition to do him either good or
harm. To this Anselm returned, that he was engaged to
be no farther the king’s subject than the laws of Christianity would give him leave; that as he was willing “to
render unto Cassar the things that were Caesar’s,
” so he
must likewise take in the other part of the precept, and
“give unto God that which was God’s.
” Upon this William, bishop of Durham, a court prelate, who had inflamed
the difference, and managed the argument for the king,
insisted, that the nomination of the pope to the subject
was the principal jewel of the crown, and that by this privilege the kings of England were distinguished from the
rest of the princes of Christendom. This is sound doctrine, if that had really been the question; but, whatever
may be now thought of it, Anselm held an opinion in
which succeeding kings and prelates acquiesced, and in the
present instance, there is reason to think that William
Rufus’s objection was not to the pope, but to a pope. Be
this as it may, the result of this council was that the majority of the bishops, under the influence of the court,
withdrew their canonical obedience, and renounced Anselm for their archbishop, and the king would have even
had them to try and depose him, but this they refused. In
consequence of this proceeding, Anselm desired a passport to go to the continent, which the king refused, and
would permit only of a suspension of the affair from March
to Whitsuntide; but long before the expiration of the
term, he broke through the agreement, banished several
clergymen who were Anselm’s favourites, and miserably
harrassed the tenants of his see. Whitsuntide being at
length come, and the bishops having in vain endeavoured
to soften Anselm into a compliance, the king consented to
receive him into favour upon his own terms; and, because
Anselm persisted in refusing to receive the pall from the
king’s hands, it was at last agreed that the pope’s nuncio,
who had brought the pall into England, should carry it
clown to Canterbury, and lay it upon the altar of the cathedral, from whence Anselm was to receive it, as if it had
been put into his hands by St. Peter himself.
France’s gentlemen of the household, distinguished himself for his taste for French poetry, although an Italian by birth. He took Ronsard for his model, and copied
, one of the king of France’s
gentlemen of the household, distinguished himself for his
taste for French poetry, although an Italian by birth. He
took Ronsard for his model, and copied at least his faults.
His “Premieres oeuvres poetiques
” were printed at Paris,
in L‘Enfer de la mere Cardine, traitant
de l’horrible bataille qui fut aux enfefs, aux noces du portier Cerberus et de Cardine,
” Paris,
, an Italian by birth, but the author of many compositions in French
, an Italian by birth, but the
author of many compositions in French prose and verse, was
born at Venice about 1363, being the daughter of Thomas
Pisan, of Bologna, much celebrated at that time as an
astrologer. When she was five years old, her father settled
with her in France, and her extraordinary beauty and wit
procured her an excellent husband by the time she was
fifteen. After ten years she lost this husband, Stephen
Castel, by whom she was most tenderly beloved, and found
her chief resource for comfort and subsistence in her pen;
her husband’s fortune being entangled in several law-suits.
Charles VI. of France, and other princes, noticed and
assisted her on account of her talents, and provided for her
children. When she died is uncertain. Some of her
poems, which are full of tenderness, were printed at Paris
in 1529, others remain in manuscript in the royal library.
“The Life of Charles V.
” written by desire of Philip the
Good, duke of Burgundy, is considered as her best performance in prose. It is preserved in ms. in the library
of the king of France, but a transcript was published by
the abbé Le Beuf in the third volume of “Dissertations on
the Ecclesiastical History of Paris,
” where he gives a Life
of Cnristina. She wrote also “An hundred Stories of
Troy,
” in rhyme “The Treasure of the City of Dames,
”
Paris, The Long Way,
” translated by John Chaperon, Le Chemin de long etendue.
” In the Harleian collection of Mss. (No. 219, 5) is
a piece by Christina entitled “Epistre d'Otnea deese de
Prudence a Hector, &c. Mis en vers Francois, et dedie
a Charles V. de France.
” Anthony WidviSle, earl Rivers,
translated a work of hers, we know not whether included
in any of the above, entitled “The Moral Proverbs of
Christian of Pyse,
” printed by Caxton. Lord Orford, who
has noticed this work in his account of WidviUe, has also
introduced an account of Christina, which, although written in his flippant and sarcastic manner, contains some interesting particulars of her history.