Why God Man?

The early Church fathers struggled to explain exactly how salvation worked; that is, what was the actual way that Christ's death and resurrection achieved atonement for Adam's Original Sin? There were different theories of atonement, but they were not satisfactory for various reasons.

It was Anselm of Bec (also called "of Canterbury" when he became archbishop there) who in the late 11th century provided an explanation of why God had to become a man for salvation in his treatise Cur Deus Homo (literally "Why God Man?"). His explanation came to be called the satisfaction theory of atonement.

Previous theories of atonement suggested that the souls that needed saving were out of reach because satan (who held them in hell) had some kind of right or authority to keep them because of Adam's transgression. This idea made no sense to Anselm; God could not "owe" anything to satan. Anselm's view was likely influenced by the contemporaneous feudal system. In it, loyalty and duty were owed to your lord. Transgressing against your lord was unthinkable, but in those cases where it happened, you owed restitution, the restoration of what has been taken from the lord.

Original Sin, therefore, was not an act that put man in satan's power; it was a transgression against the Lord, and restitution was owed to Him, not satan. We humans owed God a debt of honor. As Anselm writes in Chapter I of Cur Deus Homo:

This is the debt which man and angel owe to God, and no one who pays this debt commits sin; but every one who does not pay it sins. This is justice, or uprightness of will, which makes a being just or upright in heart, that is, in will; and this is the sole and complete debt of honor which we owe to God, and which God requires of us. [link to translation]

Adam had failed in "uprightness of will" and transgressed. Restitution needed to be made.

How was one to do that? Man is inadequate to make restitution to the divine; we did not have that capacity in us. What was needed for divine transgression was divine restitution. For that to happen, a man was needed who was more than a man; hence, the Incarnation.

Through the birth of Jesus, there now existed someone whose divine essence gave him the supererogatory ability to "pay back" to God more than a simple man could. His death is not the only part of the restitution, however. As Aquinas later stresses, the Passion—especially the suffering and scourging he experiences prior to Crucifixion—was especially needed to pay back the honor that was taken from God by Adam and even more.*

Anselm seems to apply this salvation universally, although some later writers suggested that it only applied to some individuals.

Anselm completed this c.1098, while in exile. Why was the Archbishop of Canterbury in exile? Well, England's King William "Rufus" was the reason. William had seized all his lands, and their differences of opinion on lay investiture and the church's independence made England unsafe for Anselm, even though he retained his title. William was about to die in a suspicious hunting accident, however, and Anselm's situation could change. Could. We'll talk about that tomorrow.

*In the film Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), immediately after the 39 lashes, the scene changes and the actor is seen all cleaned up in a radiant white robe with the triumphant strains of the title song playing. This moment reveals him truly as divine. It seems to me the director was familiar with the idea that it was this particular suffering that was the "turning point" in Christ's role in guaranteeing salvation.

Thomas Becket, Aftermath

It's a rare medieval post that starts with a Star Wars reference, but here it is (spoilers!): when Obi Wan confronts Darth Vader, he warns his former pupil "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine." As it turns out, the murder of Thomas Becket by knights acting (so they believed) on Henry II's wishes gave to the problematic and disgraced Archbishop of Canterbury a level of celebrity I doubt he would have achieved otherwise.

Henry's involvement—deliberate or not—in the murder tarnished his reputation; the death of Becket was one of the points brought against him during a rebellion in 1173. But let's focus on the immediate events after 29 December 1170.

The four knights responsible fled northward, to the castle of one of their number, Hugh de Moreville. Regardless of their "good intentions"—they thought they were carrying out orders of a king—the murder of an archbishop was not going to be without consequence. They might have thought to get to Scotland, where English law would not follow them. The four were excommunicated by Pope Alexander III. They were not in immediate danger of secular punishment: Henry did not confiscate their lands, which would have been appropriate for the circumstances. When they appealed to him for advice on their future in August 1171, however, he refused to help them. They ultimately went to Rome to seek forgiveness from the Pope, whose penance for them was to go to the Holy Land and support the Crusading efforts.

Back to Canterbury and 29 December 1170: the monks began to prepare the body for burial. Legend says they were astounded to find that he wore a hair shirt under his clothing: a sign of great piety, to willingly do penance through discomfort. His coffin was placed beneath the floor of the cathedral, with a hole in the stone floor where pilgrims could stick their heads in and kiss the tomb. The martyr's tomb became an enormously popular pilgrimage site; from martyr to saint took only two years: he was canonized by Alexander III on 21 February 1173.

Fifty years after his death, his bones were put into a shrine of gold and jewels—affordable because of the radical increase in donations and offerings due to the popularity of St. Thomas of Canterbury—and given a more prominent place behind the high altar. Sadly, the shrine and bones were destroyed by Henry VIII in 1538, and all mentions of Becket's name were to be eliminated. Despite Henry's efforts, Thomas Becket is still one of the most popular and best-known martyrs and saints in English history.

As was typical for prominent figures, especially saints, several legends cropped up about him with no evidence, but several locales tried to connect themselves to a now-famous figure. I'll share some of the more outrageous stories next.

Sigeric of Canterbury

If you search online for "Sigeric of Canterbury" the top entries returned are about his itinerary, as mentioned previously. He did more than travel to Rome, however.

He was educated at Glastonbury Abbey and was a monk there for awhile. Sometime after 975 he was made Abbot of the Benedictine St. Augustine's in Canterbury. In 985-6 he was made Bishop of Ramsbury. This title seemed to be granted to men who were being prepared eventually to be Archbishop, and that's what happened to Sigeric. He was made Archbishop of Canterbury from 990 to 994, which was the impetus for the well-known trip to Rome. He had to receive his pallium from the pope, the official piece of garb that denotes the archbishop status.

Why was he "groomed" for the highest clerical office in England? We don't have details about his career, but he is sometimes referred to in contemporary document as "Sigeric the Serious." This suggests that he was respected for his demeanor. On the other hand, since we do not have any contemporary details about his demeanor, some have suggested that the "serious" epithet was a misnomer based on translation of the Anglo-Saxon "Sigeric" into the Latin "Serio" which looks like "serious." Hard to say.

He was considered a scholar and expert on religion. Ælfric of Eynsham, who succeeded Sigeric as Archbishop of Canterbury, dedicated a book of homilies to Sigeric, and asked Sigeric to correct any errors of doctrine he might find. Ælfric was quoted here in 2015 about his drinking preferences.

You have probably heard of Danegeld, the money paid to invading Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard by Æthelred the Unready. It was apparently the advice of Sigeric that Æthelred pay it. You can read a little more on why that may have not been a good idea if you check out this post from 2014. Sigeric himself paid money to the Danes to save Canterbury Cathedral from being burned.

Sigeric died 28 October 994, leaving a collection of books to Canterbury and wall hangings to Glastonbury Abbey.

The pallium mentioned here has a lot of history to it. I'll tell you about it next time.

Gilbert de Clare

Gilbert de Clare, Tewksbury Abbey
Unknown if this is "our" Gilbert,
his son, or his grandfather

Gilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Gloucester (1243 - 1295), was mentioned in the post on the Battle of Evesham, switching support from the treasonous Simon de Montfort to King Henry III. Though very young, he had already managed some significant accomplishments.

His father died in 1262, when Gilbert was still in his teens, and so Gilbert was made a ward of Humphrey de Bohun, the 2nd Earl of Hereford (whose son would also have experience with a traitor), but came into his own a year later. So it was that, in spring of 1264 (as part of the uprising against King Henry), he captured Canterbury and attacked the Jews.

He went on to sack the Jewry perhaps with the main intention of destroying all the evidence of debts [...]. The result was that the Jewry was dispersed. It is unclear if there were fatalities. What is known is that two years later, in 1266, the community had returned to Oxford and 18 leading local Jews signed a treaty of self-defence, in which they sought to protect themselves against, 'liars, improper persons, or slanders'. [link]

He may have been emulating Simon de Montfort, who had expelled Jews from Leicester in 1231 (one year before Henry established the Domus Conversorum to give English Jews an option for co-existence). The older Montfort's parents had been extremely hostile to Jews in the past. Clare might have been operating simply because he could, and wanted to impress Montfort, who was the focal point of the barons' uprising against Henry and looked like he would be the next king.

Eventually, however, Clare's sympathies shifted back to Prince Edward in 1265, after Edward escaped his guardians and began to rally supporters against the rebellious barons. Years later, when Henry died, Clare swiftly and openly declared loyalty to the new King Edward I. Clare was named Guardian of England whenever Edward was out of the country.

He died on 7 December 1295 and was buried in Tewksbury Abbey. A stained glass window in the abbey represents him...or his son Gilbert, the 8th Earl...or his grandfather Gilbert, the 5th Earl.

Halley's Comet

Halley's Comet on the Bayeaux Tapestry

The nice thing about astronomy is that some celestial events are so predictably cyclical that they can help confirm dates in history, or be spotted in the historical record. Halley's Comet has appeared numerous times while human beings have been on Earth, and many of those appearances have been noted by record-keepers.

BCE records suggest Halley's was spotted as early as 467 BCE by the Greeks and the Chinese, but the first report detailed enough to be certain of Halley's pattern was in 240 BCE by a Chinese chronicle.

The 1493 Nuremberg Chronicles used many early sources, one of which mentioned the comet appearing over Europe in 684. The 837 approach—recorded by astronomers in Germany as well as across the Middle East and Asia—was the closest the comet ever came to earth: a mere 3.2 million miles away, and took place on 10 April. The Annals of Ulster—an Irish chronicle extending from 431 to 1540 CE—says of 912 "A dark and rainy year. A comet appeared."

1066 saw the appearance of an invading Norman army in England and the appearance of the comet in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the Irish Annals of the Four Masters, and later in the Bayeaux Tapestry.

Drawing and note from Eadwine Psalter

The Bayeaux Tapestry wasn't the only attempt to record visually what they saw in the sky. The 1145 appearance was drawn up by a monk, Eadwine, who was copying a psalter at Canterbury Cathedral. On the bottom of the page with the Fifth Psalm, Eadwine added a drawing and a note: “Concerning the star ‘comet’. The star ‘comet’ has a ray such as this, and in English it is called the long-haired star.* It appears rarely during the course of many years, and then as a portent.”

The next appearance of Halley's is scheduled for 28 July 2061.

*comet is from Greek and means "hair" or "long hair."

Gervase of Canterbury

Gervase of Canterbury (c.1141-c.1210) was a monk of Christ Church in Canterbury. He was ordained on February 16, 1163 by Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket (who would be assassinated in 1170, canonized by Alexander III a few years later, and become the focus of the most famous shrine in England).

Gervase had a fairly undistinguished career as a monk, and his "importance" for us is in his connection to other people and events. He was involved in the dispute between the monks of Christ Church and Archbishop of Canterbury Baldwin of Forde. Baldwin disapproved of the luxury in which the monks of Christ Church lived, derived from the donations made by pilgrims to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket. At one point, Baldwin had the entire monastery confined under house arrest for a year and a half. Gervase was one of the monks sent to inform Baldwin that they were making an appeal to the pope. Ultimately, the monks were given their freedom and normalcy restored (except that Baldwin appointed Roger Norris, a pretty ineffective administrator, as their prior).

For a brief time Gervase held the position of sacristan (the person who takes care of the church and its contents), working for the Archbishop Hubert Walter.

...and that's about it for Gervase, except for one little thing that has intrigued historians and astronomers for centuries. Gervase kept records and wrote books, such as a history of the Archbishops of Canterbury and his Mappa Mundi, which lists bishoprics and ecclesiastical houses in England, Wales and Scotland. He was also the chronicler of his monastery, and on the night of June 18th, 1178,* he recorded something curious and previously unseen.

...but what the event was, and how June the 25th is actually the anniversary of the event on the 18th, I'll save for tomorrow.

*The same year this was happening in Italy, as mentioned on the June 20th post.

Lanfranc, Part 1 (of 2)

Scholar and Teacher, Priest and Politician

There are two reasons why I want to mention Lanfranc today. One is because today is the 923rd anniversary of his death.* The second is because I want to discuss his most famous pupil in the future, and this is nice background for that.

Lanfranc (c.1005-1089) was born in Italy, educated in the liberal arts, and moved to France to teach, finally deciding to join the abbey at Bec in Normandy in 1042. In 1045 the abbot persuaded him to open a school in the abbey. His reputation drew students from France, Flanders, Germany and Italy.

His understanding and teaching of religious doctrine produced powerful thinkers who rose high in ecclesiastical ranks. Lanfranc himself ultimately became Archbishop of Canterbury, but not before a strange political somersault.

Duke William of Normandy, also called William the Bastard (and later William the Conqueror) wished to marry Matilda of Flanders. Two items stood in his way (three, if you want to believe the legend): his bastardy (he was the son of his father's mistress), and the fact that they were too closely related to satisfy custom and law. (The third thing is that Matilda supposedly refused to marry a bastard; and I guess there's a fourth thing, if you want to assume that she didn't like the fact that he was so angry with her that he angrily dragged her off her horse by her braids and threw her to the ground.) Lanfranc publicly opposed the marriage as inappropriate. Duke William (of Normandy, and Bec Abbey is in Normandy, remember) sent Lanfranc into exile; on the point of departure, however, he was forgiven and took on the task of persuading the pope to consent to the marriage! (I would love to tell you that he was the man for the job because the pope had been a student of Lanfranc's, but Pope Alexander II, who had been a student of Lanfranc's, didn't become pope until 1061.) Lanfranc's arguments succeeded, however, William and Matilda got married, William later decided to conquer England, and the rest is (English) history.

So when an Archbishop of Canterbury was needed years later, Lanfranc was rewarded for helping out William. His first job was to straighten out Thomas of Bayeaux, the Archbishop of York, who thought that York was empowered to operate independently of Canterbury's authority. Lanfranc was having none of that, and figured Thomas owed him one, since Lanfranc had given him passing grades years ago. Thomas, however, did not give in to his former teacher, so Lanfranc turned to Pope Alexander II who was now on the throne of Peter and agreed to allow Lanfranc to get it settled by a council of the English church, which met at Winchester. Lanfranc got the primacy he wanted, agreed to by the king and queen with their "X"s on the document. Before Alexander II could ratify the ruling on the Canterbury-York dispute, however, he died and was replaced by Gregory VII, who wasn't inclined to rubber-stamp England's rulings. The argument stretched out for years.

Lanfranc was a powerful help to the king, among other things foiling a conspiracy against the king and helping to ensure the succession of the next king. But what history cares about is his contributions to theological doctrine, of which more soon.

*To be honest, that date is disputed; some say it was May 24.