Lanfranc
Lanfranc
Archbishop of Canterbury, born Pavia, Italy, c.1005; died Canterbury, England , 1089. After a liberal education in England , he went to Normandy and entered the monastery at Bec, where he opened a famous school. An opponent of the doctrines of Berengarius, he succeeded in having the Catholic doctrine defined at the Lateran Council, 1059. He obtained the papal dispensation for the marriage of William, Duke of Normandy, to Matilda of Flanders, and after William’s invasion of England , 1066, Lanfranc was made Archbishop of Canterbury. He secured the primacy of the See of Canterbury over that of York, helped reform the Church in Scotland, and prevented many ruptures between the king and pope over the question of tithes. In the struggle over investitures, he consistently upheld the rights of the Church. Lanfranc probably advised the king to name William Rufus his successor, and he subsequently made constant efforts to check the evil deeds of the latter.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Lanfranc
Archbishop of Canterbury, b. at Pavia c.1005; d. at Canterbury, 24 May, 1089. Some say his father was of senatorial rank, others accord him a somewhat humbler station. He received a liberal education according to the standard of the age, notwithstanding the death of his parents during his tender years. On reaching manhood he applied himself to the study and practice of the law with marked success, but left Pavia for the purpose of devoting himself to the pursuit of learning. He made his way to France, and attached himself to a school at Avranches, in Normandy, where he became noted as a teacher. At a later period, a vocation to the religious life developing itself in him, he quitted Avranches secretly, only taking with him one Paul, a relative. His biographer tells us he was robbed on the road, but eventually made his way to Bec, where Abbot Herluin was then engaged in building a monastery which he had recently founded. He was received into the ranks of the little poverty stricken community after the customary period of probation, and applied himself to Biblical studies. In time, he was appointed prior of the monastery by Herluin, and was then enabled to open a school there, which rapidly became famous, and attracted scholars from many parts of Europe, several of whom rose to high rank in after years, especially the future pope, Alexander II, and Anselm, who succeeded Lanfranc both as prior of Bec and as Archbishop of Canterbury.
In May, 1050, being in Rome on business, he attended the council there and opposed the heresies that had of late years been broached by Berengarius on the subject of the Sacrament of the Altar, denying the mode of the Real Presence. Through the contents of a certain letter, Lanfranc came to be suspected of sharing Berengarius’s erroneous views, but he so ably explained his own opinions that he has stood forth ever since as the principal exponent of the doctrine which has from that date been labeled with the name of Transubstantiation. Needless to say, that doctrine did not take its rise then, or through Lanfranc but his masterly exposition of the Faith (always held by the Church implicitly, and merely enucleated by him) was given with a clearness and precision of definition such as has been handed down through succeeding ages to ourselves. During the same year, at the Council of Vercelli, he once more upheld the orthodox belief against Berengarius, and again at Tours, in 1055, and finally secured the triumph of truth over error, of authoritative teaching over private interpretation, in the definition of the Lateran Council, held under Nicholas II in 1059. At a later date, probably about 1080, he wrote “De Corpore et Sanguine Domini” against the errors which Berengarius had continued to disseminate, notwithstanding various retractations and submissions.
All these activities made Lanfranc a man of such note that William, Duke of Normandy, employed him as one of his counsellors. He, however, forfeited the ducal favor about 1052-53, on account of opposing William’s union with Matilda of Flanders, on the ground of their relationship within the prohibited degrees of kindred, and was, in consequence, ordered to leave the duke’s dominions. On his journey to the frontier he happened to meet Duke William, who roughly asked him why his orders were not being obeyed. Lanfranc jestingly replied that he was obeying them as fast as a lame horse would allow him to do so. William appears to have been mollified by the answer, a reconciliation followed, and it would seem that Lanfranc undertook to forward negotiations for securing the needful dispensation from the pope. This he finally obtained in 1059, as well as the removal of the interdict which had been laid upon Normandy. In 1066 he was appointed to the Abbacy of St. Stephen’s at Caen, one of the two abbeys lately founded by Duke William and his wife Matilda as one of the conditions of the papal dispensation from matrimonial impediments, and the ratification of their previously uncanonical union. This year is further remarkable as chronicling the defeat of Harold, King of the English, at Hastings, and the consequent conquest of England by Duke William. It is generally supposed that Lanfranc had much to do with shaping the duke’s policy of invasion, obtaining the pope’s sanction of the expedition by a papal Bull and the gift of a blessed banner, thereby conferring on the undertaking the appearance of being a holy war against a usurper and a violater of his oath, to some extent, also, identifying It with the cause of ecclesiastical reform, which was well advanced in Normandy, but still very backward in England. Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury at that period, was in very bad odour with all parties; and in 1070, at a great council at Winchester, he was deprived of his office on charges of simony and uncanonical election.
Lanfranc had been elected to the Archbishopric of Rouen in 1067, but had declined it; now, however, the Conqueror fixed on Lanfranc as his choice of a successor to Stigand, and Lanfranc was at last prevailed upon, unwillingly enough, to yield his consent at the solicitations of his friends, headed by his former superior, Herluin. After receiving the temporalities of the see from William, he was consecrated at Canterbury on 29 August, by the Bishop of London. He entered on the duties of his high station with advantages of name and learning and experience of the world such as few men have ever brought to a similar office. The king’s ecclesiastical policy, which he now, as chief counsellor, largely moulded, was without doubt beneficial to the kingdom; for the civil and ecclesiastical courts were separated, and regular synods were held, wherein regulations tending to better discipline were enacted and enforced. The Normanizing of the Church further tended to bring the native ecclesiastics into closer touch with the learning and practice of the Continent; and this was effected by replacing nearly all the Saxon bishops and abbots with Normans, on pretexts grave or slight. Whilst the insularity of the native clergy was thus beneficially broken down, much on the other hand of local practice, laudable in itself, was swept away. Much might well have been retained, but could not stand against the prepossessions of the dominant party, and the effect generally was the destruction of local customs. In particular, the liturgy lost much of its distinctiveness. Hitherto the Saxon Church had kept in close touch with Rome. The old Itala version of the Psalms, for instance—that which is used to this day in the choir of St. Peter’s at Rome—was everywhere employed in England; but the Norman superiors supplanted that ancient version by the Gallicana, to which they were accustomed. Proof of this may be seen to this day in corrected codices, such as, for instance, British Museum Additional MS. 37517 (the Bosworth Psalter), which possibly may have undergone revision at the hands of Lanfranc himself.
Once, however, that Lanfranc was identified with the English Church, he espoused its cause warmly, upholding the dignity and primacy of his own see, by refusing to consecrate Thomas of Bayeux to the archiepiscopal See of York till he admitted his dependence on that of Canterbury. This dispute was carried to Rome, but was thence referred for settlement back to England, where the case was finally decided in favor of Canterbury at a national council held at Winchester, at Easter, 1072. Thomas made his submission to Lanfranc in a council held at Windsor at Pentecost of the same year. In connection with this incident a grave charge has of recent years been brought against Archbishop Lanfranc by H. Böhmer (in “Die Fälschungen Erzbischof Lanfranks”), who accuses him of having falsified and forged documents in order to secure the primary of the See of Canterbury over that of York. M. Saltet (in “Revue des Sciences Ecclésiastiques”, 1907), and others, have dealt with the question, exonerating Lanfranc from any personal complicity in these forgeries, if such they were.
Meanwhile Lanfranc had been to Rome in 1071 to receive the pallium from Alexander II, his former pupil at Bec. As Archbishop of Canterbury his influence was so great that he was from time to time consulted by bishops not belonging to his own province or obedience, and he helped in the work of reforming the Church in Scotland. He enforced the observance of celibacy among the clergy in accordance with the decrees renewed in 1076 at a synod held at Winchester; no canons were to be permitted to marry, nor could married men be ordained to the diaconate or the priesthood. But it is clear that at the time a state of degeneracy existed, and that too drastic measures all at once had to be avoided, since clergy already married were allowed to retain their wives. He resisted an attempt to oust the monks at Canterbury and Winchester in favor of secular canons, and secured papal confirmation of the existing practice which had come down from the days of St. Augustine of Canterbury. Many episcopal sees were at this period transferred from obscure villages to rising towns, as Sherborne to Salisbury, Dorchester (Oxon.) to Lincoln, Thetford to Norwich, and Selsey to Chichester. In 1076 he again visited Rome, and, on the return journey, made a tour of Normandy, during the course of which he had the satisfaction of consecrating the church of his old monastic home at Bec.
The king’s attitude towards the Court of Rome more than once placed Lanfranc in a situation of extreme delicacy. William refused to allow the bishops of England to leave the kingdom for the purpose of visiting the pope without his consent. For this Lanfranc appears to have incurred the blame and was reproved, being, moreover, summoned to Rome, in 1082 under pain of suspension. He did not go, but it was the infirmities of old age, not contumacy, which prevented him from undertaking the long and arduous journey. It is well, also, to remember that a purely political reason for the king’s refusal may be assigned, and Lanfranc probably shrank from precipitating a rupture between the pope and the king upon a question of constitutional law.
William introduced the system of feudal tenure for Church lands, which he was enabled to do when bestowing them upon Norman ecclesiastics, and required homage for them. But only in time did feudal homage and ecclesiastical investiture come to be confounded. It may be safely said that William never dreamt of encroaching upon ecclesiastical privilege, nor of questioning the spiritual supremacy of the Holy See, even when refusing to comply with the request of Gregory VII that he should do homage for his kingdom, and liquidate certain arrears of Peter’s pence. The explanation of the pope’s attitude and demand would seem to be that the tribute had come to be looked upon as a token of vassalage, whereas, in its origin, it was unmistakably a free gift. William, while refusing to render homage, promised that the arrears of Peter’s-pence should be forthcoming. Capital is sometimes made, too, of the fact that William and Lanfranc adopted a hesitating attitude in the case of the antipope Guibert, or Clement III, in 1084. All that can be justly inferred is that they maintained strict neutrality until such time as the merits of the candidates could be adjudged by proper authority. As that authority was not theirs, neither William nor Lanfranc assumed the prerogative of settling the dispute one way or another. (See Liebermann in “Engl. Hist. Rev.”, April, 1901, p. 328.) In fact, no act of theirs can be instanced as showing anything but the most complete and filial submission to the Holy See. (See Martin Rule in “Dublin Rev.”, 3rd series, vol. VI, 1881, pp. 406 sqq.)
Lanfranc strenuously upheld the rights of his Church of Canterbury, when necessary, by legal action, even against the Conqueror’s half-brother Odo of Bayeux. He also showed himself a munificent benefactor to the see, rebuilding the cathedral after its destruction by fire in 1067, improving the archiepiscopal estates by his good management, founding hospitals for the sick and indigent of both sexes, and giving liberally to widows and to the poor. His munificence was not confined, however, to his own see; he contributed largely, for example, to St. Albans, whose abbot, his relative Paul, had initiated there a vast scheme of rebuilding. His lifelong love of learning prompted him to foster studies; and even when immersed in the multitudinous and anxious affairs attached to his office and to his secular position as chief counsellor to the king, his pen was not idle, as the list of his works, which (considering the calls on his time) is a long one, testifies. His writings were published collectively by d’Achery in 1648; they may also be consulted in Migne, P.L., CL, and in Dr. Giles’s edition of his works, published in 1844. Other treatises, now lost, have been attributed to him, amongst which are some that should rightly be ascribed to others.
When William had to leave England to attend to the affairs of his continental dominions, Lanfranc acted as his vicegerent, or regent, in England, and displayed not only activity and sagacity as a temporal ruler, but military qualities of no mean order as well in the repression of a rising against the Conqueror in 1074. It was probably by his advice, too, that, notwithstanding the violence of that young prince’s character, William the Conqueror left England to his second son William Rufus, as by right of conquest, Normandy to his eldest son Robert, by right of inheritance, and only a large sum of money to his son Henry. The choice of Rufus was, doubtless, because, as having been Lanfranc’s pupil, and as having received his knighthood from him, the archbishop’s influence over him might be presumed to be of some weight. Lanfranc crowned him at Westminster less than three weeks after the Conqueror’s death.
Lanfranc’s name is, with that of his successor, St. Anselm, inseparably coupled with the thorny question of investitures, for the differences between king and primate, which came to a head under St. Anselm, showed their beginnings under Lanfranc. Here it is enough to say that his influence over a great ruler, such as the Conqueror was, prevented any but worthy appointments in the Church. But the root of the future evil lay in regarding sees merely as portions of the temporal fiefs attached to them, instead of keeping their spiritual character wholly separate from their temporal adjuncts. So long as a ruler—such as the Conqueror—was right-minded, no great harm was to be feared, but when a godless savage like William Rufus saw fit to intrude unworthy men into sees, or kept sees vacant in order to enjoy their revenues, then great evils arose, and such men were likely to assume—as Rufus did—that spiritual power and jurisdiction was derived from them by means of investiture with staff and ring, as well as tenure of the temporalities whose outward symbols were at that time, unfortunately, the same instruments. Lanfranc saw clearly the distinction between the civil and ecclesiastical capacities in which the same man might be regarded and might act, and it is related of him that in 1082 he encouraged the Conqueror to arrest his brother, Bishop Odo. The king scrupled to imprison a clerk, but Lanfranc grimly pointed out that he would not be arresting the Bishop of Bayeux (as it was not for an ecclesiastical offence), but the Earl of Kent—a title he held. Again, in 1088, when William de S. Carilef, Bishop of Durham, was being tried for his share in the rebellion of Odo and the Norman lords, that prelate endeavored to shield himself under his episcopal character. Lanfranc reminded him, first, that he was not at the bar as a bishop, but as a tenant-in-chief of the king; secondly, that the bishops judging him were acting in a like temporal capacity. Had that distinction been recognized and borne in mind by William Rufus, the troubles of his reign about investitures need never have arisen.
Lanfranc endeavored to check the extravagances of the Red King, who, however, proved deaf to his entreaties and remonstrances. Nevertheless, it is certain that, as long as Lanfranc lived, his influence, slight as it might be, caused Rufus to put some sort of restraint upon his evil nature. His faithlessness to his engagements and promises, however, was a source of bitter sorrow to the aged archbishop, and doubtless hastened his death. It had been his accustomed prayer that he might die of some malady which would not affect his reason or his speech, and his petition was granted. An attack of fever in May, 1089, in a few days brought him to the grave. On 24 May, the last day of his life, his physicians having ordered him a certain draught, he asked to defer it until he had confessed and received the Holy Viaticum. When this was done, he took the cup of medicine in his hand, but instead of swallowing it, calmly breathed his last. He was buried in his own cathedral. In the “Nova Legenda” Lanfranc has the title of Saint, and elsewhere he is called Blessed; but it does not appear that the public honors of sanctity were accorded to him.
His character may here fitly be summed up in words written in the “North American Review” (XCII, 257): “An Italian by birth, trained to new thoughts by long residence in France, he brought the subtile mind of his birth-land, refined by the use of French policy, to his new home, and into contact with the clear, hard sense of the English; and ruled in that realm with more than the skill of a native. . . . he was called on . . . so to frame and regulate the institutions of the Church, that they might conform to and sustain the altered constitutions of the State. . . . vigour of intellect and energy of purpose were . . . . demanded in one who must displace an old hierarchy, long and deeply established in the affection of the people, and mainly form anew the entire internal economy of their religious sentiments and worship.” In every capacity, as scholar, as author, as politician, and as divine, Lanfranc exhibited the sound sense, rare tact, and singular ability that marked the great man amongst his fellows, and that gained for him a memory enduring through eight centuries even to our own day.
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HUNT in Dict. Nat. Biog., s. v.; FREEMAN, Norman Conquest (Oxford, 1887); STUBBS, Constitutional History (Oxford, 1875-78); GILES, Lanfranci Opera (London, 1844); Vita Lanfrancii in MIGNE, P.L., CL (Paris, l854); WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY, Gesta Regum and Gesta Pontificum in Rolls Series; W. AND M. WILKS, The Three Archbishops (London 1858); STANTON, Menology of England and Wales (London, 1887); RULE, Abp. Lanfranc and his Modern Critics in Dublin Rev. (1881), 3rd series, VI, 406 (a very valuable article, as it explodes modern misunderstanding of the ancient chroniclers’ statements); Works of Abp. Lanfranc in North Am. Rev. (1861), XCII, 256; CHARMA, Lanfranc, Notice biographique (Paris, 1850); CROZALS, Lanfranc, sa vie, son enseignement, sa politique (Paris, 1877); LONGUEMARE, Lanfranc, Conseiller politique de Guillaume le Conquerant (Caen, 1902); BOHMER, Die Falschungen Erzbischof Lanfranks (Leipzig, 1902); IDEM., Kirche und Staat in England (Leipzig, 1899).
HENRY NORBERT BIRT Transcribed by Joseph E. O’Connor
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIIICopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Lanfranc
the most noted foreign churchman who rose to distinction in the English Church of the Middle Ages, was born of a senatorial family in Pavia, Italy, about 1005; studied law in Bologna, but not without attention to other subjects; returned to Pavia, where he taught jurisprudence, and also the liberal arts, with great success. He soon gave his attention exclusively to the latter, the liberales discipline, and especially to dialectics, and, leaving his own country, he traveled over a large part of France, until, induced perhaps by the fame of William, duke of Normandy, he settled in Avranches with some of his old pupils. He there won great distinction as a teacher, but in 1042, having determined upon a more private and contemplative life, he betook himself to Rouen, where, in fulfillment of such a purpose, according to his biographer Crispinus, he proposed to reside. On his way thither he was fallen upon by robbers, bound to a tree, and there, stricken in conscience for what he deemed a too selfish fear, and for his unfitness to find consoling communion with God in the hour of peril, he made a vow, should he escape with his life, to enter a monastery. Delivered from the hands of the robbers by some passing travelers, he entered the cloister of Bec, of the Benedictine Order. After three years of quiet, he began again, at the instance of Herluin, the abbot of Bec, to give instruction, and Bec became the resort of students from every class, both clergy and laity, and from many lands. Made prior of the monastery in 1046, he established a more extensive and systematic course of study, sacred as well as secular, unusual attention being given to grammar and dialectics. In respect to the former, Lanfranc’s influence contributed greatly to revive the general study of Latin, and in dialectics he is a forerunner of the schoolmen.
Exegesis, and patristic, but especially speculative theology, were pursued. Anselm was among his pupils at Bec, and also the future pope Alexander II. During this period, about 1049, occurred Lanfranc’s first dispute with his former friend Berengar, then archdeacon at Angers, on the subject of the Lord’s Supper. The latter, while defending the opinions of Scotus Erigena, sought in a letter to persuade Lanfranc; but the letter, falling into the hands of others, gave rise to such charges of heretical fellowship against Lanfranc that he was provoked, in defending himself at Rome and Vercelli in 1050, to a violent attack upon Berengar. The learning which he displayed in this controversy greatly increased Lanfranc’s fame for scholarship, and he was now invited to the position of abbot in various cloisters, and was treated with special favor by William of Normandy. It is related that, on occasion of some false charges, the duke fell out with him, and banished him from his dominions. A lame horse was given him for the journey, and, seated on it, he happened to meet the duke, who could not help noticing the laughable hobbling of the animal, when Lanfranc took occasion to say to him, “You must give me a better horse if you wish me out of the country, for with this one I shall never get over the border,” The jest won the duke’s attention, and an explanation followed, which established Lanfranc in a position of permanent favor. He was employed by William in 1060 to secure from the pope Nicholas II liberty to marry a near relative, a princess of Flanders.
This allowance was obtained on the condition that William should found two cloisters, one for monks and another for nuns. Over the monastery of St. Stephen, at Caen, which was thereupon established, Lanfranc was installed in 1063 as abbot, Anselm succeeding him in that capacity at Bee. The dispute with Berengar meanwhile continued. The latter, though constrained at Rome in 1059, through fear, to recognize the doctrine of Paschasius Radbertus, nevertheless afterwards sought to spread his former sentiments, and was bitterly opposed by Lanfranc in his work, De corpore et sanguine Dom. Jesu Christi, adv. Berengar Turonensem, published between the years 1064 and 1069. In this work the doctrine of transubstantiation is clearly contained. Berengar issued a reply, De sacra caena adv. Lanfrancum (an edition of which was published by Vischer in Berlin in 1834). The ability with which this controversy was conducted on both sides has been confessed. Severe personal charges are mingled with argument, and, whatever fault may have been established against Berengar, his opponent was not without blame nor without prejudice in dealing with patristic authorities. While at Caen, Lanfranc steadfastly refused the archbishopric of Rouen, but, upon the advice of his old abbot Herluin, he accepted in 1070, with much reluctance, the archbishopric of Canterbury, which was urged upon him by William of Normandy, at this time on the throne of England. His task in the archbishopric was by no means light, inasmuch as he was obliged not only to control and amend the rudeness and ignorance of his own clergy, but to defend also the authority of his primacy against the other prelates, especially Thomas of York and Odo of Bayeux and Kent. The self-will of the king also gave him much trouble and he was frequently tempted to retrace his steps to the cloister, but was urged by pope Alexander II to continue his public labors. The violent disposition of William Rufus, who ascended the throne in 1087, was a further annoyance. Notwithstanding all these difficulties, he labored perseveringly in the erection of churches and cloisters, in multiplying correct copies of the fathers and of the holy Scriptures, in the extension of learning and improvement of manners in clergy and people, and in care for the sick and the poor. “Under his spiritual rule,” says a noted Church historian, “the Church of England received as strong an infusion of the Norman element as was forced upon the political system of England by the iron hand of the Conqueror.” His active and prudent influence was also often employed in state affairs.
Lanfranc’s relation, while archbishop of Canterbury, to the papal chair forms an important feature of his life. He was on a friendly footing with Alexander II, his former pupil, and went to receive at his hands the pallium of his office, though he had at first desired, in accordance with the king’s wishes, that it should be sent to him to England. Gregory VII, greatly displeased with William’s independent conduct, and his inclination to restrain the bishops from visiting Rome, sharply complained to Lanfranc that he had also lost his former spirit of obedience to papal authority. Lanfranc protested his continued affection for the Church, and declared that he had sought to win the king to conformity in certain particulars (as specially in the matter of Peter’s pence), but said little concerning his general relation to the king, or that of the latter to the pope. He seems to have known that a certain degree of consideration, more than he liked definitely to express, must be allowed to the royal wishes. The pope’s command to Lanfranc to appear in Rome within four months under threat of suspension he openly and without answer disobeyed. A letter of Lanfranc to an unknown correspondent (Ep. 59), who sought to gain his adhesion to the rival pope, Clement II, places him in a neutral position as between the two popes, and as awaiting, with the government of England, further light on the subject. Something of Lanfranc’s coldness towards Gregory may perhaps be explained by the fact that he saw in this pope (as is apparent in a letter cited by Gieseler) a protector of his enemy Berengar. Lanfranc died May 28, 1089, two years after the death of William the Conqueror.
Besides his work against Berengar may be mentioned his Decreta pro ordine Sancti Benedicti: Epistolarum Liber, containing 60 letters, 44 written by him and 16 addressed to him: De celanda confessione, a fragment of an address in defense of his primatical authority; and Commentaries on St. Paul’s Epistles. His biography of William the Conqueror has been lost. The first complete edition of Lanfranc’s writings was published by D’Achery, a Benedictine (Paris, 1648, fol.); the earliest edition is entitled B. Laenfranci Opera (Paris, 1568, fol.); the latest edition is by Giles (Ox. 1844-45, 2 volumes, 8vo).
See Milo Crispinus, Vita B. Lanfranci; Cadmer, Vita Anselmi; Chronicon Biccense; Malmesbury, Gesta Anglorum, book 3; Acta Sanctorum, Maii, tom. 6; Mohler, Gesamelte Schriften, volume 1; Hasse, Anselm, volume 1; Sudendorf, Berengarius Turonensis (Hamburg and Gotha, 1850); Gieseler, Ch. Hist. 2:10-2; Churton, Early English Church, pages 266, 291 sq., 302, Palmer, Ch. Hist. page 106 sq.; Milman, Latin Christianity, 3:438-440; Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, volume 2 (1861); Hill, Monasticism in England, page 337 sq.; Herzog, Real-Encyklop. s.v.; Wetzer u.Welte, Kirchen-Lexikon, s.v.