Anselm of Canterbury, St.
Born in Aosta, Lombardy, Italy; died in Canterbury, Kent, England, Anselm is credited as the founder of Scholasticism, the major school of thought during the Middle Ages; he is best remembered as the originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God. He argued that the very idea of an absolutely perfect being "than which none greater can be conceived", is in itself proof of the existence of that Being, since our thinking cannot go beyond that which exists.
His other main contribution to theology was his explanation of the atonement for sins achieved by Jesus on behalf of all mankind. Here Anselm goes beyond the underlying theory provided by St. Paul, by ingrafting the feudal concept that satisfaction or recompense for a wrong must be made not simply in proportion to the wrong in itself but also according to the status of a person against whom the offense has been committed. Since the infinite God is the offended party and man the offender cannot offer adequate satisfaction to the almighty Deity, a Redeemer was required, of such dignity as to be able to repair the wrong on our behalf. This remained the most widely-held theory of the redemption until well into the 20th century. Nowadays, other avenues of explanation are sought, which paint a less vengeful portrait of the offended God.
Anselm was abbot of the monastery at Bec, Normandy, when William the Conqueror, who had conquered England in 1066, made grants of lands in England to the monastery. During one of Anselm's subsequent visits to England, in 1093 William's son and successor named him archbishop of Canterbury, which had been vacant since the death of Lanfranc in 1089. Anselm refused to be consecrated as archbishop until William restored the lands to Canterbury and acknowledged Urban II as the rightful pope. Although William, in fear of death from an illness, agreed to these conditions, when he later recovered he demanded from the new archbishop a sum of money, which Anselm refused to pay.
In resisting the king's desire to interfere in what was essentially an ecclesiastical matter, Anselm became a major figure in the investiture controversy; i.e., over the question as to whether a secular ruler or the pope had the primary right to invest an ecclesiastical leader, with the symbols of his office.
The controversy continued for several years, and may be said to have prepared the ground for the even more bitter disputes between king and archbishop that led to the murder of St. Thomas a Becket in Canterbury cathedral in 1170, under the petulant king Henry II.
At the Church Council of Bari (Italy) in 1098 Anselm presented his grievances against King William II to Urban II. The Council reapproved earlier decrees against investiture of ecclesiastics by lay officials