A letter from Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury (1099-1100)

Translated letter:

Anselm, the archbishop: to his lord and dearest friend, Burgundius, and his wife, his most beloved sister Richeza,(1) greeting and the blessing of god. Be assured that your son Anselm,(2) our dearest nephew, is in good health and happy with me at Lyon and that by the grace of God everything goes well with me. As to your son, I tell you that you can rejoice greatly for having offered him to God for he loves God and what he should love. Therefore you ought to thank and love those who brought him up in the love of God and of their order, and who educated him in good behavior. I am certain that, because of the merit you earned in having offered your first-born son to God with a devout spirit that God did not wish to lose any of your children, nor allow those whom you bore to reach the age at which they might be soiled by sin and the evil of this world and so lose eternal life. He, however, made all of them pass out of this world to himself by a good end. Moreover, if you are wise and reflect wisely you will understand that God showed you great mercy by taking away from you the opportunity of loving this world and for desiring those things which are perishable when he deprived you of heirs in this life and made your children his heirs and children in eternal life. Now give thanks to God that, having been freed of all care and worry, you can freely hasten towards God with your whole heart, your whole intention and whole strength, having no other care than that of saving your souls. Thus you will reach with your free will the place where the Lord, in his mercy and despite yourselves, took your children who have died.(3) We hope that this son whom you have given to God will, with the help of God, also reach that place where you will all together — father, mother, sons and daughters — rejoice in the sight of God in eternal bliss, and each one will be glorified on account of each of the others as much as for himself. Thus, my most beloved and dearest friends, my dearest brother and dearest sister, I pray, beseech, admonish and advise you not to scorn the mercy which God granted you when you did not expect it, and not to lose the glory which God has prepared for you if you have no fault. Realize, realize, that when God caused you to be alone in this life by depriving you of all your children, it was not because of God's anger but because of his grace. You who now remain alone, having nothing here on which you can put your affection, will be able to hasten without any obstacle towards him and give back to him yourselves and all that belongs to you. May almighty God so inflame you with his love that you may despise all pleasures of this life, reach out to him with all your affection and come to him at the end. Amen.

Original letter:

Anselmus archiepiscopus: domino et amico carissimo Burgundio et uxori eius, sorori suae dilectissimae Ricezae, salutem et benedictionem dei. Sciatis quia filius vester Anselmus, carissimus nepos noster, sanus et laetus est mecum apud Lugdunum, et ego dei gratia prospere me habeo. De filio vestro hoc vobis dico quia gaudere potestis multum, quod illum deo obtulistis. Amat enim deum et quod amare debet. Unde gratias agere debetis illis et eos amare, qui eum in amore dei et sui ordinis et in bonis moribus nutriverunt. Et certe credo quia propter hoc meritum, quod primogenitum vestrum deo devota mente dedistis, noluit deus perdere ullum de prole vestra, nec permisit eos quos genuistis, usque ad illam aetatem, in qua peccatis et malitia huius mundi sordidarentur, pervenire, ut vitam aeternam perderent, sed omnes eos bono fine de hac vita ad se transire fecit. Insuper, si sapientes estis et sapienter consideratis, intelligetis deum fecisse vobis magnam misericordiam de vobis ipsis, quoniam abstulit vobis occasionem amandi hoc saeculum et desiderandi ea quae transeunt, cum vobis abstulit haeredes in hac vita et fecit filios vestros suos haeredes et suos filios in aeterna vita. Nunc agite gratias deo, quia exonerati estis et expediti, ut libere toto corde, tota intentione, totis viribus curratis ad deum et solliciti sitis solummodo de salute animarum vestrarum, et ut illuc spontanea voluntate perveniatis, quo deus filios vestros, qui mortui sunt vobis nolentibus, misericorditer traxit, et quo istum, quem deo dedistis, deo adiuvante perventurum exspectamus, ubi pariter pater et mater, filii et filiae in conspectu dei in gloria aeterna gaudeatis et unusquisque tantum de singulis aliis quantum de se glorietur. Ergo dilectissimi et amicissimi, frater carissime et soror carissima, precor, obsecro, moneo, consulo ne contemnatis misericordiam, quam deus vobis non praemeditantibus fecit, et ne perdatis gloriam quam deus vobis, si culpa vestra non fuerit, praeparavit. Cognoscite, cognoscite, quia quod deus vos ita omnibus filiis orbatos in hac vita solos fecit, non est ira dei sed gratia dei, ut qui iam soli remansistis, nihil habentes quod hic ametis, sine omni impedimento ad illum curratis et ei vos et vestra reddatis. Omnipotens deus sic vos suo amare accendat, ut omnem huius vitae delectationem faciat contemnere et ad se toto affectu tendere et pervenire. Amen.

Historical context:

Archbishop Anselm reports to his brother-in-law and his sister that their son, his namesake, is with him in Lyon. He praises their gift of their first-born to God and interprets the death of all their subsequent children as a beneficial result.

Scholarly notes:

(1) Richeza was Anselm's only sister and probably considerably younger than himself. Her husband Burgundius once wanted to come to Canterbury, which Anselm forbade him to do, see Epp 258, 264, 268. He therefore turned his interest to a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the wake of the First Crusade. Anselm encouraged this enterprise, Epp 264, 268. Burgundius either did not return or, if he did, died soon after his return. As Burgundius and Richeza did not belong to wealthy families, Anselm wanted to provide for his sister after her husband's death by trying to have her accepted at the Cluniac house of Marcigny. This was prevented by the Abbot of Chiusa, Ep 328; for Anselm's family see Southern, Anselm, 3-12.
(2) Anselm, the Archbishop's nephew, was the eldest son of Richeza and Burgundius who had offered him to God and St Michael the Archangel at the monastery of Chiusa where he was brought up, VA 104. At Easter, 28 March 1098, Anselm stopped at the monastery on his way to Rome. He took his nephew with him during his first exile, and eventually via Lyon to England, where the younger Anselm stayed until his uncle's death on 21 April 1109. He later became Abbot of St Saba in Rome, and was sent to England as papal legate in 1115 and in 1116-1119, see Tillmann, Legaten, 24-25; CS 708-709, 716-717. Later he again returned to England and in 1121 was elected abbot of Bury St Edmunds after the death of Alebold (1119). He ruled that abbey until his death in 1148, OV VI. 316. In 1136 part of the chapter elected him bishop of London but the election was quashed in 1138, and Anselm returned to his abbey, OV Vl: 478. Fervently devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, he became the propagator of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Heads, 32; Southern, Anselm, 1011; D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England (Cambridge, 1966) 512-513.
(3) All the children of Burgundius and Richeza, save Anselm, their firstborn, died.

Printed source:

Sancti Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, Opera Omnia, ed. F.S. Schmitt (Edinburgh: T. Nelson, 1946-63), ep.211, 4.107-08; translation and annotation from The Letters of Saint Anselm of Canterbury, trans. Walter Fröhlich, Cistercian Studies 97, 3v (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1990-94), 2.159-61.   The translation is reproduced with the permission of the translator and the publisher,  Cistercian Publications Inc. Editorial Offices, Institute of Cistercian Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008. All rights are reserved; downloading and copying for any purpose other than private research is prohibited.

Date:

1099-1100