Sally N. Vaughn

University of Houston

   Looking back on the accomplishments of the monks of Bec about a century after the abbey's foundation in 1034-7, an anonymous author wrote a "Praefatio" to Vita Herluini,1 the first of a whole set of biographies of Bec's abbots.2 First, the "Praefatio" explained, it was customary among the ancients to "set up likenesses" and to commit to writing the outstanding deeds of their ancestors, thereby memorializing them for the instruction of future generations "as an example of virtue and an inducement to good living."3 Likewise, it continues, the (early) writers of the Church commemorated the lives of the saints in writing to preserve for their followers "a clear path of uprightness." But the "moderns" (of his own time) wrote for a different purpose: not, as the ancients, to capture the favor of the common people, but so that the readers might follow the example of good living put before them:

   Thus, in this little "history" of the commemoration of great men by statues; by art; by biographical writing of ancient Rome; by the hagiography of the early Christian Fathers; and by the continuance of the custom with a new purpose in their own age, the anonymous monk of Bec puts his abbey and its authors in a historical context.

   The author, possibly Milo Crispin of Bec, then lists the works he sees as attaining these historical goals: first, the Vita Herluini (written by Gilbert Crispin, a monk of Bec in 1109, when he was abbot of Westminster); then, perhaps his own work, the Vitae of the third abbot of Bec, "the noble William" of Beaumont, and of the fourth abbot Boso, "with his surpassing wisdom" (c. 1130-36). The life of St. Anselm (1124), the second abbot of Bec, he adds, was published by a man of Canterbury who was Anselm's close attendant and servant (Eadmer) after God had called Anselm to serve as Archbishop of Canterbury in England (cols. 695-96).

   It thus appears that there may well have been a major concern for historical writing at Bec, and that a kind of philosophy of history had been worked out there. But this concern has gone largely unnoticed by modern scholars of Bec. The monumental work of A. A. Porée, Histoire de L'Abbaye du Bec, concerns land grants and the "factual" history of Bec as recounted by the Vitae of Bec's abbots mentioned above.4 Other authors treat Bec only tangentially, as lesser parts of a study of Bec's great men: Lanfranc, St. Anselm, and Theobald, all archbishops of Canterbury. Margaret Gibson, Lanfranc's biographer, argues that the school of Bec lasted only a few years, as a fund-raiser for the building of Bec's church.5 Interestingly, Gibson refutes the contentions of Lanfranc's previous biographer, A. J. MacDonald, that Lanfranc's talents lay in diplomacy and administration. She argues that Lanfranc should be seen in the model of his own student, St. Anselm, as an intellectual and scholar rather than a teacher and administrator. Hence her view of the school of Bec as short-lived.6 I have argued elsewhere that Bec's school flourished under Lanfranc's successor, Prior Anselm, 7 whom most modern scholars know and admire for his theological writings, particularly his ground-breaking ontological argument proving God's existence by reason alone. Yet there are other, still-to-be-explored aspects of St. Anselm.

   Sir Richard Southern, Anselm's modern biographer, considers the curriculum of Anselm's school at Bec to have been focused largely on monastic conversation and ideals. Southern saw Anselm as engaged in meditation and philosophical or theological contemplation on a high intellectual level unsuited to most of the ordinary students of Bec. Although Southern discusses the historical works of Anselm's biographer Eadmer, he does not consider them as products of Bec, but rather as products of an English tradition; that is, he views Eadmer as primarily an Englishman rather than a student of Anselm.8 Moreover, like the vast majority of modern students of St. Anselm, Southern concentrates on Anselm's theological writings in the context of earlier and

   On the other hand, Avril Saltman, Archbishop Theobald's modern biographer, sees Theobald, who was also an abbot of Bec and archbishop of Canterbury, as a kind of successor to Lanfranc and Anselm, the pupil of their pupils at Bec. More interestingly, he praises Theobald primarily as an able administrator and a faithful servant of pope and king, a kind of bridge between Anselm and Becket.10 Thus the character of the school of Bec emerges as a riddle to be solved. What was its focus, what did its teachers teach, and how long did it last? No one has yet done a thorough analysis of all its possible components. This study will suggest that the historical interest implied in the Vitae of Bec abbots was at least a part of the curriculum of Bec and that it went far beyond the mere commemoration of Bec's abbots. For an examination of historical writing by men who studied at or derived from Bec reveals a both general historical interest of a most remarkable kind and an extraordinary production of historical manuscripts by men of Bec.

   We first encounter the Bec historical impulse in St. Anselm's journey to England shortly after his February 1079 consecration as abbot of Bec.11 In England, Anselm visited Bec's lands and monks, including Gilbert Crispin at Westminster and Archbishop Lanfranc at Canterbury. At Canterbury, a burning question was under debate: Should the new Norman episcopal regime recognize pre-Conquest Anglo-Saxon saints? In a famous episode at Canterbury, Anselm argued for the recognition of St. Elphege, because, Eadmer explained, Lanfranc was still "somewhat green" as an Englishman, and "some of the customs which he found in England had not yet found acceptance with him." While Lanfranc was giving attention to changing some of these customs--a good ten years after his arrival in England--he confided to Anselm his doubts about the sanctity of some of their saints, in particular Elphege, the archbishop of Canterbury who had been murdered by the Danes in 1012 for refusing to pay them a huge ransom for his life. Anselm argued that since Elphege died rather than sin against God in a small matter, he would not have hesitated to die rather than anger God by committing some graver sin. Since it appears to be a graver sin to deny Christ than for any lord on earth to injure his men by taking away their money, much less would he have denied Christ if the Danes had tried to force him to do so. Therefore, like John the Baptist, Elphege had died for Christ and for Truth.12

   But Eadmer, who recorded this incident, apparently was not satisfied with this answer. Perhaps it was too subtle for him. He commented that, "looking at the matter historically" (intuentes historialiter) we see that the more fundamental cause of St. Elphege's death was that "like a Christian freeman he stood out against his pagan persecutors, and tried to convert them from their infidel-

   This incident provides a glimpse of the process of writing and perhaps editing history. Clearly Anselm's logic was decisive--but somehow it was not enough. What persuaded Osbern and Eadmer to invent a more acceptable account? The veil is lifted partially by Anselm's letters. There we discover that the monk Osbern was in fact sent to Bec to study, apparently long before Lanfranc assigned him to write St. Elphege's vita. In Epistle 39, Anselm reports to Lanfranc that "Your Dom Osbern daily develops admirably both in his fervor for prayer . . . and in his progress in knowledge through perseverance in study, coolness of thinking, and a tenacious memory."14 This letter of 1073-1077 places Osbern's studies at Bec well before Anselm's visit to Canterbury and the famous Elphege episode of 1079-1080.15 Indeed, the same Osbern is mentioned in a letter of 1071 as being in England with Anselm's close friend, Gundulf, a monk of Bec and Caen, where Osbern is described as "our brother."16 It may well be significant that in the letter of 1073-1077, which describes Osbern's rapid progress, Anselm expressed an interest in seeing St. Dunstan's Vita and Institutes, for Osbern later also wrote a revised life of St. Dunstan.17 It appears that, because of this course of study at Bec, Anselm considered Osbern a "brother" of Bec. Anselm refers to him as among "our beloved brothers," who include Dom Herluin , Henry, and Gundulf, both before and after he came to study with Anselm at Bec.18 Lanfranc sought Osbern's return to Canterbury in 1076, when Anselm describes the young monk as fully cleansed of his former perversity, and beseeches Lanfranc to treat him gently, with the milk of pure affections, so that his great new beginnings will not be sullied with reversion to his former bad habits.19 Whatever Anselm taught Osbern, he did so in the context of researching the life and teachings of another Archbishop of Can-

   A glimpse of the education Anselm instilled in Osbern arises in Osbern's lengthy letter to Anselm beseeching him to accept the Archbishopric of Canterbury. Osbern begins by acknowledging that Anselm is "erudite in all Truth." Osbern cannot understand how someone so learned can flee from the office for which God so obviously has intended him: God has humbled the King (William Rufus) and caused the bishops to force the pastoral staff into Anselm's clenched fist. "Right order" began returning at Anselm's election, when the new Archbishop was given the possessions of "everything according to the proper law." If these signs from God were not enough to persuade Anselm, Osbern calls up God's Plan for Canterbury: Anselm has been suckled and nurtured by God himself--enlightened by God's teaching, enriched by his virtues, raised up by his honors.20 This statement precedes Anselm's comments correlating Jesus to a mother who suckles and cares for her children,21 suggesting Osbern's close acquaintance with Anselm's teaching.

   Moreover, the passage calls on historical events to validate God's plans for Anselm. Osbern then recalls that God had founded Canterbury, His bride, through the zeal of Pope Gregory, with the blessing of his apostle Peter, and endowed it with the unique and lasting privileges of St. Boniface, Honorius, Vitalian, Agatho, and other orthodox fathers--clearly invoking Bede's Ecclesiastical History.22 Interestingly, Osbern holds forth the example of St. Peter, the symbol of the papacy; St. Paul's missionary activities; and finally the examples of one of the first archbishops of Canterbury St. Lawrence, and the important Canterbury reformer St. Dunstan, citing the appearances to each by the same Apostle Peter.23

   Thus has Osbern been taught to view the Archbishopric of Canterbury as the special bride of Christ, a kind of second throne of St. Peter in its own right, validated through the historical grants of a succession of Popes beginning with the Apostle to the English, St. Gregory the Great; through successive papal grants; and through the precedents set by the successive archbishops of Canterbury, including especially St. Lawrence and St. Dunstan, to whom St. Peter had appeared. We here glimpse a reflection of the historical theory Anselm had taught to his student Osbern considering the status of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England, and the validity of the theory and its status through history. This theoretical construct of the Archbishop of Canterbury as Primate of Another World, a second and parallel Peter, also permeates the historical works of one of Anselm's other students, Eadmer of Canterbury,24 who wrote his Historia Novorum in Anglia as a record of Anselm's public life--his pontificate. I have discussed this theory at length elsewhere.25

   Osbern's penchant for historical thinking and writing may have been taught to him by Anselm at Bec, for Osbern took on the task of writing the Vita Elphegi immediately on his return to Canterbury. Indeed, Anselm may have anticipated the question of historical writing and its usefulness. For Osbern went on to write a whole series of historical biographies, including lives of Dunstan, Aelfheah, Oda, Bregwine, Wilfrid, and Audoen, all of whose relics were enshrined in Canterbury. Osbern may well have written these biographies for the occasion of Lanfranc's completion and dedication of the new cathedral at Canterbury in 1077.26

   Anselm may have been teaching historical writing to a number of specially selected students, for another of Anselm's students, Guibert of Nogent, also exhibited a strong interest in history. Guibert states that Anselm had sought him out while still prior of Bec (1060-1079), even though Guibert was still a child. As Guibert studied at St. Germer de Fly from 1067-1105, Anselm must have taught him from 1067 to 1093, when Anselm was translated to Canterbury. Apparently Anselm visited St. Germer frequently, and sometimes it seemed to Guibert that he himself was the only reason for Anselm's visits. According to Guibert, Anselm taught him carefully how to conduct the inner self and how to use the laws of reason to govern his body. Anselm divided the mind into three or four parts: appetite, will, reason and intellect. Using these methods of analysis, Anselm taught Guibert to explicate the Gospels, and Guibert began to apply his reasoning to other commentaries. Guibert set himself to making a moral commentary on the opening text of Genesis. His abbot at St. Germer "noticed that I was writing a commentary on the first chapter of sacred history" (empasis added), and ordered Guibert to stop the project, but Guibert continued in secret.27 After his first fling with "sacred history," Guibert later turned to secular history. In 1108, he wrote his famous Gesta Dei per Francos, based on his reading of the anonymous eye-witness account, Gesta Francorum. Guibert's work is clearly a reinterpretation--his modern editor calls it "highly patriotic," and addes that it "shows Guibert's strong biases against the Greeks and Muslims."28 This historical editing seems to recall the inventiveness that Eadmer and Osbern used in their rewriting of the story of Elphege to suit their own tastes, while still incorporating Anselm's logical explanation.

   Moreover, even in Guibert's closely introspective and more famous autobiography of 1115, Monodiae (Solitary Songs), Guibert displays an inordinate interest in history. In Book I, the most personal biography, Guibert inserts "digressive chapters" on monastic developments in eastern and northern France29--a topic of some interest to Anselm. These include Chapter 9 of Book I, in which Guibert recounts the example of a secular count, Evrard, who had inspired others to follow his example by modeling his conduct on that of a monastic exemplar, Thibaud. Chapter

   The famous Canterbury historian Eadmer also enjoyed a connection to Bed long before Anselm was translated to Canterbury, possibly as early as 1081 or 1082. His account of the Elphege incident certainly reads like an eye-witness account, and indeed it occurred on Anselm's first visit to Canterbury c 1080.. Anselm then went home to Bec, while Osbern began the lives of Elphege and Dunstan at Canterbury. There is some possibility that Eadmer accompanied Anselm to Bec in 1080 or joined him at the abbey well before Anselm's return to Canterbury in 1093, for Anselm, in an early archiepiscopal letter, twice refers to Eadmer as "a monk of Bec."34 And indeed we know little of Eadmer's whereabouts between 1081 and 1093, when Anselm returned to England and Eadmer immediately became his secretary and constant companion. Anselm was careful with words; he was unlikely to have carelessly forgotten that Eadmer was a monk of Canterbury, unless Eadmer had just recently returned from Bec with his mentor. Lanfranc habitually sent Canterbury monks to Bec--Osbern, Holvard, his own nephew Lanfranc, and Wido; and Anselm also

   Let us pause in our consideration of Eadmer for a moment to note that other monks of Bec were also writing history. At one of the Bec foundations in England, St. Neots, which was founded by Anselm at the request of Richard fitz Gilbert of Clare c. 1081-82, there survive two Vitae of the Bec dependency's patron saint and namesake, St. Neot. The first life is Anglo-Saxon in origin, and was written either between 980 and 1004-13, or later in the eleventh century, but before 1080.37 Of more concern to us is Vita II, also called "The Bec Life" of St. Neots, dated to after 1066 but before 1200. Composed by a Norman in Southwest England, near or in Glastonbury,38 it survives in one single manuscript of about 1200; it was printed by Mabillon and the Bollandists.39 Mabillon's exemplar may have been the Vita S. Neoti, found as item 80 of the mid-twelfth century Bec library-catalogue.40 If so, Vita II would have been in existence by about 1150.41

   St. Neots was established as a dependency of Bed and populated with monks of Bec. Its first abbot or prior would have been a monk of Bec, although no abbot is recorded until the reign of Martin of Bec, who died in 1132.42 The colonizing of St. Neot's may well have been directed from Glastonbury, which enjoyed the rule of a monk of Caen, Thurstan, at the time St. Neot's was founded as a colony of Bec, about 1081-82.43 The monks of Bec regarded the monks of Caen as "sons of our sons," and many Caen monks were trained at Bec in the Bec tradition.44 But Thurstan was driven out of Glastonbury in 1083, because he had tried to impose Norman and Flemish chants on the Anglo-Saxon monks. He fled to Caen, where he may have stayed until his death in 1096. Not until 1100 was another monk from Caein, Herluin, appointed to replace him.45

   Ruled by two successive monks of Bec and Caen, the monks of Glastonbury also exhibited an interest in history. They commissioned William of Malmesbury to write about their antiquities and histories, probably in the abbatiate of Herluin; William finished his account about 1120. Indeed, William agreed with Anselm's and Eadmer's visions of Canterbury as a second and parallel seat of St. Peter, and the Archbishop of Canterbury as Pope of Another World, for he reported that Pope Urban welcomed Anselm to Bari in 1097 as "pope of another world."46 nterestingly, the monks of Glastonbury commissioned William's history and a Life of St. Dunstan as a counter-weight to Osbern's Life of St. Dunstan,

   Malmesbury's histories for the Glastonbury monks were contemporary with the Bec life of St. Neot's and were almost contemporary with Eadmer's most well known histories, the Vita Anselmi and Historia Novorum. The Vita Anselmi is a biography of St. Anselm from his birth to about 1100 that lapses at that point into a series of miracles. The Historia Novorum, on the other hand, is a kind of "official" history of the Canterbury prelacy. It begins with a rather long account of the Canterbury primacy from the reforms of St Dunstan, dwelling on the relationship between Canterbury's kings and archbishops. Indeed, Eadmer seems to take up the story of Canterbury just at the point where Bede leaves off. The gist of the account is to show that from St. Dunstan's time England's king and Canterbury's archbishop ruled side by side, in a kind of co-rule of England, the ideal nature of the relationship between Lanfranc and the Conqueror, and its destruction by King William Rufus.51 The account establishes a firm historical base for the later statement put in Anselm's mouth, that Canterbury was "the very Mother of the whole of England, Scotland and Ireland and of the adjacent isles" (26). It continues, "You must think of the Church [of England] as a plough. . . . . This plough in England is drawn by two oxen outstanding above the rest, the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury. These two drawing the plough rule the land, one by human justice and sovereignty, the other by divine teaching and authority" (36). Once more, we see reflected in Eadmer's writing, as in Osbern's and Guibert's, Anselm's teachings. For Anselm styled himself in his letters and documents as "Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of Great Britain and Ireland" and called the Church of Canterbury "the first of all the churches in all England."52 The rest of Eadmer's account shows Anselm restoring this status to Canterbury through Eadmer's testimony up to 1100, and after 1100 by including a series of Anselm's letters. The interruption of both the Historia Novorum and the Vita Anselmi at precisely 1100, and their substantial changes in character at

   Yet another of Anselm's students was involved in the writing--and also the collecting--of history. Gundulf, Anselm's close and dear brother from Bec and Caen, accompanied Lanfranc to Canterbury and later became bishop of Rochester.53 With him came at least one, and probably a lot more, monks of Bec. After Gundulf's death in 1108, an anonymous monk of Rochester wrote a Vita of his famous patron. Rodney Thomson was "inclined to see [the anonymous author] as one of several Bec monks who joined Gundulf at Rochester." Thomson finds a "Bec-centred, not a Canterbury –centred viewpoint" in the text , and writes that " more than anything else, Anselm is the main stylistic influence," drawn from Anselm's letters, prayers and meditations. Thomson believes the anonymous monk of Bec wrote Vita Gundulfi during the pontificate of Bishop Ernulf (1114-1124), himself also a monk of Bec.54 Simultaneously, Thomson believes, the monks of Rochester collected "the earliest and main portion of the famous Rochester cartulary known as the Textus Roffensis." This collection of legal and historical documents, Thomson believes, was completed between 20 October 1122 and 18 February 1123. He sees "many and important connections between the Vita and the Textus" although clearly they were not by the same author . One purpose of both works seems eminently clear to Thomson: to render the alleged or disputed donations of lands and property to Rochester inviolate. 55 Thus, in the end, these works seem to have had a legal purpose.

   Significantly, Lanfranc's first act on his translation to the Archbishopric of Canterbury in 1070 was to challenge Thomas archbishop of York, also a Bec student, for his refusal to render a profession of obedience to Archbishop Lanfranc.56 Lanfranc rallied all his resources to defeat Thomas' claims that York had never professed obedience to Canterbury. He procured witnesses from among the old men of the kingdom to testify as to the customs of England, but first and foremost he called on the historical testimony of Bede, quoting the Ecclesiastical History chapter and verse to present as legal evidence first in the king's court, then in the papal court.57 Clearly one of the components of interest in history at Bec was legal. Lanfranc himself wrote the Scriptum Lanfranci de Primatu, a detailed account of his efforts to secure a comprehensive profession of obedience from Thomas of York. It is followed by five relevant documents including Thomas's profession of 1072 and Lanfranc's letters to Pope Alexander II and Hildebert specifying the historical evidence.58 The author of the A-text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle appended to it a series of Latin annals of Lanfranc's archiepiscopate, "based on the records at Christ Church" and included the Scriptum Lanfranci59

   It appears to be quite in the tradition of Bec, therefore, that the monks of Bec continued to write historical treatises in surprising numbers. Milo Crispin probably wrote his Vitae Willelmi et Bosoni, lives of the third and fourth abbots of Bec, in the 1130s, clearly following the example of Anselm's student and "adopted son" Gilbert Crispin,60 who wrote Vita Herluini in about 1109. Also in the 1120s, Eadmer completed the extraordinary series of histories and biographies he had begun in 1097. These include the vitae of the saints enshrined at Canterbury, Dunstan, Aelfheah, Oda, Bregwine; the vitae of Wilfrid and Audoen, works which update and revise Osbern's texts; his masterpieces, the Vita Anselmi and the Historia Novorum; and his tracts, De excellentia Virginis Marie (long thought to be a work of Anselm himself), De Beatitudine Coelistis Patriae, and Sancti Anselmi Similitudinibus.61 An anonymous author of Bec also completed a life of Lanfranc, drawing heavily on Gilbert's Vita Lanfranci but also adding much new information. Margaret Gibson believes it may have been written by Milo Crispin about 1139-56.62 Clearly it is a product of Bec, from whatever author. Gibson notes that Milo "had several contemporaries at Bec of a literary and historical turn of mind," namely Robert of Torigny, author of a major history of Normandy;63 Stephen of Rouen; and the anonymous author of the Miracula S. Nicholas, which begins with a history of Lanfranc's arrival at Bec.64 Only a few years later, 1160, Wace, an Englishman educated at Caen, wrote a romantic secular history of Normandy in the vernacular.65

   About this same time too, an anonymous author at Bec constructed the text De Libertate Beccensis Monasterii, which spells out the events that had led to Bec's possessing an extraordinary set of liberties--freedom from all secular and ecclesiastical control. The author begins with the reasons why he has written:

He finds Bec's exclusive legal privileges firmly grounded in the historical precedents set by Bec's founder Herluin, and by Bec's successive priors and abbots as they fought both the duke and the archbishop of

   Anselm himself said as much in his correspondence. Running all through his correspondence is the concept that a precedent once established is unbreakable law. In 1095 he argued that "I am certain that the archbishopric will be given to no one after me except in the way I hold it on the day of my death, and that if another king should come to the throne during my lifetime, he will grant me nothing unless he finds that I already hold it."67 His point was that any concessions he made to King William Rufus of the privileges of Canterbury would be permanent. Anselm also beseeched Pope Paschal not to command him to return to England from his [second] exile, because to do so under the king's terms would break the law of God--"otherwise I would make it appear that I put man before God and that I was justly despoiled for wanting to have recourse to the Apostolic See. It is quite obvious what an injurious and detestable example this would be for my successors."68 To the monks of St. Evroul, he wrote that "nobody except those to whom God gave the power of binding or loosing can place anyone over souls for whom an abbot is named and appointed. That church is within my primacy and archbishopric, the consecrations performed in that church belong to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and you know perfectly well that I am he. For I have never surrendered to any of you any of the rights which belong to me, nor do I do so now."69

   To Gundulf bishop of Rochester Anselm ordered the monks of Canterbury not to give in to the king's demand for money: "You know that I ought not to give my assent to such an unheard-of and unusual case--and since I ought not I dare not. . . . . For this reason it is not expedient for me or anybody else that this custom should be introduced into the Church of God by any assent [on my part]" (emphasis added).70 Writing to Ernulf prior of Canterbury, Anselm explained why he could not return to England and communicate with those who had been excommunicated but were allowed to attend the king's court: to do so would mean "an intolerable diminution of our church would be confirmed" by Anselm's action. Confirming the king's evil practices would cause "detriment to the church entrusted to me." Moreover, "It seems better to me that during my absence tribulation should continue to rage in England if it cannot be avoided, than that any evil custom should be confirmed for the future by my presence and toleration" (emphasis added).71

   Thus Anselm believed that by his actions, he confirmed or established the customs of Canterbury, and that any breach of the rights of his office as established by his predecessors would establish an evil custom and weaken the see of Canterbury. As Eadmer states, "Anselm followed with-

   Thus Anselm had a very strong reason for teaching historical writing at Bec, and the profusion of biographers and historians emanating from Bec suggest that the collection of historical texts and the production of historical treatises constituted a significant part of Anselm's curriculum at Bec. Anselm was always concerned to "set a good example" for his followers and the people under his care as archbishop of Canterbury, and much of the historical writing produced by Bec students was in the nature of explicating such "good examples" in both histories and biographies.. In other cases, the record of historical events served a vital legal function in the feudal courts of England and Normandy, and the historical writing of Bec was also a recognition and use of that fact. In the extraordinary explosion of historical writing that Southern describes as the great English contribution to the twelfth-century Renaissance, "among these authors were the Men of Bec." Indeed, among these authors the men of Bec loomed very prominently, writing to describe examples of virtue as an inducement to good living, so that the descendents might follow the footprints of their ancestors and run the life of salvation with the steps of good works.