Saint Anselm of Canterbury, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Anselm was born at Aosta in the Alps in 1033. After quarrelling with his father, he crossed into France and became a monk at the abbey of Bec in Normandy under Lanfranc, and later its abbot. There he wrote the Proslogion, describing God as “that than which nothing greater can be thought”; his motto was “faith seeking understanding.”

In 1093 he became archbishop of Canterbury. He defended the rights of the Church against King William II and then Henry I, especially over who should invest bishops, and spent two periods in exile. In exile he finished Why God Became Man. He died at Canterbury on 21 April 1109. Clement XI named him a Doctor of the Church in 1720.