Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/668

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concern us for the most part only indirectly. Of their most important aspect, as concerns us, I have spoken elsewhere, and we shall again see their fruit before the present work is ended. In his journeyings to Lyons, to Rome, to Bari, Anselm learned a new doctrine which he had never found out either at Bec or at Canterbury. It was not for his good that he, who had, like the Primates who had gone before him, received his staff from the King's hands, and placed his own hands in homage between them, should hear the anathema pronounced against the prince who should bestow or the clerk who should receive any ecclesiastical benefice in such sort as no prince had scrupled to give them, as no clerk had scrupled to receive them, in the days of King Eadward and in the days of King William. When Anselm came back to England, he came, as we shall see, the same Anselm as of old in every personal quality, in every personal virtue. But in all things which touched the relations of popes, kings, and bishops, he came back another man.

against Anselm.]

But in the course of Anselm's adventures, in his foreign journeys, there are details here and there which no Englishman can read without interest. We come across constant signs of the place which England and her Primate held in the minds of men of other lands. We read how no less a prince than Odo Duke of Burgundy, already a crusader in Spain and afterwards a crusader in Palestine, was tempted by the report of the wealth of the great English see to sink into a common robber, and to set forth for the purpose of plundering the Primate as he passed through his land. We read how he was turned from his purpose, when he saw the white hair, the gentle and venerable look, of the Archbishop,