467 – Saint Anselm

Welcome to the British History Podcast.

My name is Jamie, and this is episode 467, Saint Anselm.

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Okay,

I know at the end of the last episode, I kinda sorta promised you a fight, and we're definitely gonna have one.

But we're pausing really quick to cover some seriously good gossip.

And possibly a murder?

And we're doing this because we have a rare pair of letters from Anselm, and they were sent to a surviving member of the family of Harold Godwinson.

And the contents of these letters are just so much worse than you think.

Now, like anyone interested in history, I firmly believe that good gossip holds value all to its own.

After all, what is history but a bunch of gossip?

But there is another reason why we're making this brief detour in the story.

This situation that we're about to discuss is actually a great example of the massive cultural shift that England and Europe are undergoing.

You see, right now, it's the end of 1093.

And that means we're just over two years from the launching of the First Crusade.

The church, and by that I mean the men who who run it, have radicalized and they're emboldened.

And they have been steaming towards this moment since at least Hildebrand, later known as Pope Gregory VII.

And you'll remember that Hildebrand and his allies wanted to reshape all of society and all forms of leadership and government so that they served under the church.

They imagined a future where the church would pick world leaders and the church would dictate the lives of the public, pretty much in every way.

Now, Hildebrand did face some opposition to this idea, but thanks to the support of figures like Pope Alexander, his ideas took root, and they slowly began to grow.

And we have discussed before how the church threw their support behind William and his conquest of England, and how that very much looks like a trial run for what would eventually become the Crusades.

Now, of course, the cultural, economic, and social factors that led to the Crusades are incredibly complex, and to cover it properly, I'd need to start an entirely different podcast.

But the part that I want to highlight right now is that we're seeing a steady drumbeat coming out of the church.

And while it began as a fringe movement, it's now becoming the official doctrinal position.

Killing was losing its status as a universal sin.

Instead, war and killing, if done in godly service, was increasingly being seen as a good thing.

And for a while, it was just seen as something that was forgivable in the right circumstances.

But now, thanks to this new crop of radical church figures, a new idea has been introduced.

In certain circumstances, killing could actually redeem your sins.

If your fight is in service of the divine, you could actually kill your way into heaven.

Now, Pope Urban II often takes the blame for this, but this was a movement with many leaders.

Hildebrand, Pope Alexander, Saint Anselm of Lucca, no relation to our Anselm, and many others had developed and pushed these ideas.

And so at the turn of the 12th century, this was becoming church policy.

And as such, those who agreed with it were more likely to be called to religious service and were also more likely to rise through the ranks.

So what we're seeing is an ideological victory by a radical group of men who successfully reframed Christianity and the church in ways that will go on to shape society for hundreds of years.

And the crusades, while huge, were just one symptom of this whole event.

This spread out into society in countless numbers of ways.

And on top of that, by making such a radical change, what the church was doing was also destabilizing an already unstable society.

And that destabilization has unpredictable knock-on effects.

I mean, just look at England.

This violent turn in church culture resulted in papal support for the Norman conquest.

And really, it's hard to imagine that the conquest would have been possible without that papal support.

And that single decision created so much instability and chaos that it's taken literally years just to summarize it for you guys in the podcast.

And it didn't stop with the Conqueror.

In the six years that Rufus sat on his father's throne, none of that has changed.

If anything, the instability has gotten worse.

The fact is, the rise of the House of Normandy has destabilized England and Normandy for generations now.

And this means that England was hung in a state of high contingency.

Everything is changing, and everything is changeable.

And this includes foundational things like the food system and structural things like taxes and roads.

It also means ideological things, like who is supposed to be in charge at any given time and why.

And in times like this, there is a potential for enormous amounts of societal change, not just because the systems that the powerful rely upon are no longer as solid as they once were, but also because the perception of what is possible shifts.

Suddenly, the calculation of what is simply too big of a risk to take changes.

And when that happens, it throws even more uncertainty into the mix.

Because now there are other people who might begin to act in new and previously unseen ways, which in turn creates even more possibilities, which even more people then try and use to pursue their own goals, which in turn introduces even more uncertainty and instability into the environment.

So you can see how the snowballs, right?

And these moments are key to the entry of radical movements into the mainstream, because it's one of those rare times where what was once fringe can become powerful.

To use an increasingly out-of-date Game of Thrones reference, chaos is a ladder.

Now, of course, it isn't a ladder for everyone.

Usually it's damaging for most people.

For example, if there was a civil war today, it's highly likely that there would be some people who would rise to levels of power and influence that they couldn't have previously dreamt of.

But for most of us, well, most of us would just suffer and live harder lives than we had done before.

But for as dangerous as high contingency is for us plebs, it is especially dangerous for the people at the top.

Because in periods of high contingency, a leader's usual aura of invincibility kind of fades.

And I suspect that is why multiple sources report that the people were talking about Rufus.

A lot.

And what they were saying wasn't positive.

A few sources even report that people were starting to suggest that Henry might make a better king than Rufus.

And if you're Rufus, that's worrying.

Because replacing a king with his younger brother was a pretty bold thing to be talking about given the king's purported power in this situation.

And yet people were doing it anyway.

So, you can see how this high contingency environment can provide radical figures with a lot of opportunities to challenge the power structure that just wouldn't have been available otherwise.

And this is why I'm not at all surprised to see someone like Anselm running the table on Rufus.

All the cards were lined up for that specific event.

And the fact is, there's a reason why smart leaders don't typically behave as chaos agents and undermine the very same institutions that their survival relies upon.

The dumb ones, on the other hand.

But it seems quite clear to me that despite Edmer's assertions, Anselm was shrewd and he read the situation correctly, and he was using it to rise to incredible heights.

And the church wasn't the only group looking to seize the opportunity that this period of high contingency provided.

Which brings us, finally, to our gossip.

You may remember Alan Rufus.

He was a Breton lord who had come to England with the Conqueror, and he pretty quickly became one of the wealthiest land magnates in all of England.

And so his wealth and his future were deeply intertwined with England's future and, presumably, with the future of the House of Normandy.

However, you might also remember that when the Red King and the Bishop of Durham were in that legal battle and the bishop got imprisoned, Alan Rufus sided with the bishop.

He actually went head to head with the king and prevailed.

Now, that is a remarkable political feat.

And on the one hand, Alan Rufus was known for being a stand-up guy, but having a sense of honor is one thing, and going head-to-head with the House of Normandy is quite another.

And who knows, maybe he would have taken that stand no matter how stable the king was on the throne.

I don't know, but I'm sure that the overall mood in the kingdom must have made that decision easier.

And that wasn't the only decision he made that stood in opposition to the House of Normandy, Normandy, or at least stood in a way that didn't align with the needs of the House of Normandy.

You see, it turned out that Alan Rufus was unmarried, and lately he'd been thinking about tying himself to a rival dynastic line.

Specifically, he wanted to marry into the House of Wessex.

The fact of the matter was that despite everything that's happened since Hastings, the line of Alfred was still out there, and it still held claim to some English estates.

Specifically, there were a few girls who were now of a marriageable age.

And while Alan was a very wealthy land magnate, marrying into the remnants of the House of Wessex would be an effective way of adding new properties to his portfolio, not to mention legitimize some of the properties that he already held, but had once belonged to that dynasty.

The problem, of course, was that a marriage into the House of Wessex directly threatened King Rufus.

Such a marriage would make the new couple dynastically and economically powerful.

And then, if they had children, oh, then you're really off to the races.

So, there was literally no reason for the king to allow it to happen.

And under normal circumstances, that would probably be the end of it.

But the House of Normandy had ensured that these were not normal circumstances.

And so Alan was on the market.

In fact, he was so on the market that Edith, daughter of Malcolm Canmore, wasn't the only girl with a dynastic link to the throne that was being offered as a potential match.

There was also King Harold Godwinson's youngest daughter, Gunnhild.

And in addition to being the daughter of the last English king, She might have also been a member of the House of Wessex through her mother's side.

Maybe.

Records of the lineage lineage of her mom are a bit shaky, but one thing that we are sure of is that she was definitely the daughter of a king of England.

And as such, she brought with her a boatload of wealth and a potential claim to the throne of England.

Now, unsurprisingly, Gunnhild has kept her head down ever since the death of her father, and she'd been living at Wilton Abbey.

The same Wilton Abbey that was educating young Edith, daughter of Malcolm.

And she'd been doing such a good job of keeping a low profile that she's largely escaped the attention of our scribes.

But just because the scribes didn't notice her doesn't mean she was invisible to everyone.

And Alan Rufus had taken an interest.

She was wealthy, she was dynastically powerful, and, unlike Edith, she was a grown woman.

And so, Alan and Gunnhild eloped.

A powerhouse was born.

And there are actually indications that this may have been a genuine love match, and that the elopement may well have been romantic and not just some cold political economic calculation.

But love or not, this was a dangerous move.

And the fact that they eloped tells you all you need to know about the king's opinion about it.

Permission was clearly not given.

And yet they did it anyway.

And while we're not told the reasoning for this, I'm guessing it's because the law wasn't what it used to be.

And so neither was the king's power.

But it didn't take long for the court to learn of what happened.

And we know that because Anselm of Canterbury decided to write a letter to Gunnhild.

There are actually two letters, and they give us a window into the radicalism that was gripping the church during this era.

Because the aggressive entitled fervor wasn't restricted to the Holy Land.

And these letters show us the type of person who could rise to prominence within such an environment.

Anselm, Mr.

I don't want this job and I'm not interested in worldly things, opens up his letter by bragging about his new position.

And he tells Gunnhild that it's his job to tend her soul, though he does detour for a moment to complain that he has to do this via a letter rather than in person, which he does not appreciate at all.

She should be close at hand.

Which actually kind of brings him back to the heart of the matter.

The elopement.

And Anselm doesn't mince words about it.

He's furious.

He writes, quote, if you choose to agree with me, be sure that you will be very glad in the end, and there will be great joy among the angels of God over you.

But if you choose not to do so, know that you will be very unhappy about yourself and you will have no excuse before God's stern judgment.

⁇ End quote.

Which sounds less like an archbishop and more like a 13-year-old boy after a breakup.

But he goes on.

He expresses outrage that she's no longer at Wilton Abbey and tells her that she's thrown off her robes and she's abandoned her role as a nun.

Now, it's important to note at this point that the context of the letters indicate that Gunnhild has been asserting this whole time that she was never a nun.

And that is actually entirely plausible.

Wilton Abbey was a very popular school for women, and it attracted students from both sides of the channel.

And Anselm even acknowledges that Gunnhild wasn't officially a nun, writing about how he knows that she wasn't consecrated by a bishop, nor had she recited the vows, but then adds that that doesn't matter to him.

Apparently, Anselm knew deep inside that Gunnhild was always planning on being a nun, and that she even looked like a nun.

And you know, normally, vows and ceremonies matter quite a lot in medieval institutions.

After all, that was kind of the whole source of the conflict between whether or not Anselm was already an archbishop.

But apparently, when it comes to other people, vows schmows.

So, right out of the gate, Anselm is establishing himself as an asshole.

But then it gets worse.

He embarks on an absolutely cringe-inducing description of the pleasures of the flesh and how the embrace of Christ is way more pleasurable.

But then, as if he realizes that he's sounding kind of creepy, he adds, quote, but to be sure, I do not call the embraces of Christ physical, end quote.

But then he just dives right back into it and waxes poetic about carnal pleasures and tells Gunnhild that Jesus, quote, has desired your beauty, end quote, and then strangely insinuates that she's also kind of a slut.

And just to prove I'm not exaggerating on that last point, here's Ansom.

Quote, my sister, how shall I say in what way that man whom you know grasped at the beauty of your flesh?

Noble woman, how shall I say it?

You, a virgin, were chosen to be the spouse of God and marked out for him by your habit and way of life.

What shall I say you are now?

My daughter, God knows that I do not speak thus in order to rejoice in your shame, end quote.

And then, just in case Gunnhild tried to argue that, well, if I'm so shameful, then Big Jay isn't gonna miss me.

Anselm asserts that actually, God quite likes women who've had a little sex on the side.

And again, I'm not exaggerating here.

Quote, we know of many holy women who, having lost their virginity, were more pleasing to God, end quote.

And, you know, fair enough.

I'm told there's a whole category of videos on that subject.

But nevertheless, this letter started out weird, and it just keeps getting weirder.

Now from here, he talks a bunch about forgiveness and goodness and how much he loves her, but then he buttons it up with a threat that's straight out of the abusive X playbook.

Anselm tells poor Gunnhild that Alan is just gonna use her, and then after he's done, he'll despise her and throw her away.

He warns her that actually, only he and his church will truly look out for her and care for her.

But if Gunnhild doesn't do what she's told, well, quote, everybody will be against you, and I and the church of God will do what we know is to be done in such a case.

⁇ End quote.

And

what exactly is he planning on doing if she doesn't agree to his demands?

Strangely, both he and Edmer are quiet on the subject.

And unfortunately, we don't have a copy of Gunnhild's response, beyond, I'm assuming, the fact that she threw up in her mouth a little bit.

But whatever she wrote, it was not what Anselm was hoping to hear.

And then, um,

Alan died suddenly and unexpectedly.

Now, I can't prove that Anselm and King Rufus had anything to do with this, but I will say that when the House of Normandy is unhappy with a Breton lord, that Breton Lord has a high chance of dying in sudden and unexpected ways.

And that, combined with Anselm's threats and the general demeanor of Rufus, makes me think that this probably wasn't natural causes.

Now, Alan's heir was actually his younger brother, and he was also named Alan, because we're in hell.

Now, thankfully, the boys had actually planned for this, so each Alan had a nickname, and this Alan was Alan the Black.

And he became the second lord of the Honor of Richmond, and an incredibly wealthy man.

And according to Anselm, Gunnhild immediately shacked up with him.

Now, Anselm's letters are our only source for this information.

And so we can't know how much is fact and how much is Anselm reacting to rumor or just projecting what he thinks is going on.

But at least according to Anselm, Gunnhild traded one Alan for another and just straight up eloped with Alan the Black.

And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

I mean, she'd just been getting threatening letters from the Archbishop of Canterbury, and then her husband died suddenly, and her entire family has been persecuted by the House of Normandy.

So, in that circumstance, I think I'd want a powerful spouse as well, especially if that spouse had an axe to grind over how his elder brother had died.

Now, it's also entirely plausible that Alan the Black didn't elope with Gunnhild, and instead, after the death of her husband, she remained and lived with him, as they might have both been concerned about her safety.

Both seem pretty plausible to me.

But regardless, Anselm was certain that she was up there in Richmond just being slutty with, how did he put it?

With the beauty of her flesh.

And so, he wrote another letter.

And this one is a doozy.

He opens it up by saying,

I still greet and call you most beloved daughter because I do not yet despair of what I desire for you, end quote.

And then it goes rapidly downhill from there.

He tells her that she was chosen by God for the nunnery from the moment of her birth, vows or not.

And Anselm goes on to remind her how much she used to actually like him and how much fun they had together.

Though weirdly, he also says all of this in the third person.

So I'm going to give you a quote, but when you hear he, this is Anselm referring to himself.

Here we go.

Quote, when he spoke to you some time ago, you then said you always wanted to be with him so that you could continually rejoice in his conversation, which you admitted to be delightful to you, and you afterwards sent him a most charming letter, end quote.

And from that conversation and her friendliness, I guess Anselm gleaned that she wanted to be a nun serving underneath him.

Cool.

With that out of the way, though, Anselm moves straight on to the attack.

and he does it in a way that I can only describe as callously psychotic.

Now, to remind you, Gunnhild is the daughter of King Harold Godwinson, and we know what happened to her family.

And we also know what recently happened to her husband.

Okay, so here's Anselm.

Quote, you were the daughter of the king and the queen.

Where are they?

They are worms and dust.

Their exalted rank, their pleasures, their riches neither preserved with them nor went with them.

Your loved one who loved you, Count Alan Rufus, where is he now?

Where has that beloved lover of yours gone?

Go now, sister, lie down with him in the bed in which he now lies.

Gather his worms to your bosom, embrace his corpse, press your lips to his naked flesh, for his lips have already been consumed by putrefaction.

Certainly, he does not care now for your love, in which he delighted while alive, and you shrink from his rotting flesh, which you long to possess.

This assuredly is what you loved in him, and this and nothing else is what you love in his brother.

And what if God took Count Allen away from this life, lest he take you away from God as he intended?

End quote.

So that's great.

He's delighting in their deaths, and then adding that actually, her husband's death is kind of her fault.

Cool.

He continues, quote, who will deny that God acted mercifully and justly towards him in this?

Mercifully, because by his death, he prevented him from doing the wickedness he wickedly planned to do.

Justly, because by death, he punished the sacrilegious intention he had in mind.

End quote.

Now, Anselm doesn't elaborate specifically what wickedness he wickedly planned to do, but considering that he was part of the court of King Rufus and how this marriage was a threat to the king's power, I have a few guesses.

I could also make some guesses as to why Anselm doesn't seem that surprised by Ellen's death, and it's sounding like he's actually bragging about it instead.

But just in case that was too subtle for Gunnhild, Anselm gets real specific.

Quote, why are you not afraid that because of you, God may kill Count Alan the Black by a similar death?

Or, what is worse, if you are united with him, God may condemn him with you by eternal death.

End quote.

And from there, Anselm goes on a tirade about how God doesn't want anyone's sloppy seconds, which kind of contradicts that first letter a bit, and then insists that she's going to burn in hell if she doesn't immediately become a celibate nun.

And I think that right there is the main purpose of all of this.

If Gunnhild has a child with a powerful noble, that child will be a threat to the House of Normandy.

So that's gotta be avoided.

Apparently, either through celibacy or threatened mortality.

And from there, Anselm starts shadowboxing again.

It seems that during his investigation, he heard a rumor that she was promised that if she became a nun, she would be elevated to abbess.

And you'll recall that in his first letter, he admitted that she hadn't taken her vows.

Now, a rational person would look at this and surmise that Gunnhild wasn't a nun.

I mean, she didn't take the vows, she didn't get consecrated by a bishop, and while she was living in an abbey, a lot of people lived in that abbey who weren't nuns.

And sure, some mystery person tried to persuade her to become a nun by promising her a title, but she didn't take the offer and got married instead.

So, uh, not a nun, right?

Well, that's not how Anselm saw it.

Instead, to him, this is proof that secretly, deep down, she always wanted to be a nun, and that secretly, deep down, she promised herself to God as a nun.

I mean, sure, no one saw it, it, but it definitely happened.

Why else would those people promise her that title?

And granted, Anselm doesn't know who made those promises.

And also, she's not going to become an abbess because those promises aren't binding anyway.

They're just promises of men, and promises of men don't count.

But whatever, while the rumors of the promises aren't binding, the fact that they exist is proof that she made a binding promise to become a nun.

And quote, therefore, you made a promise to God and not to men, end quote.

It's incredible how quickly he went from, I heard a rumor that someone promised you the abbey, to, you definitely made a promise to God and you're going to hell if you break it.

But after that, he goes back to his usual threats.

He tells her that he's her true friend, that he sure hopes that God isn't so angry with her that he keeps killing her partners until she stops sleeping around.

but then reminds her that, you know, if that does happen, it will be her fault, and her life will make an excellent subject in future sermons.

And then he ends it with: quote, May Almighty God thoroughly cleanse your heart from all carnal lust and fill it with the sweetness of his love, so that I may see what my heart desires for you, namely, that through the holiness of your present life, you may deserve the joy of eternal life.

Amen.

End quote.

I genuinely don't know how to describe these two letters in any other way than dangerously insane.

But this second letter appears to have done the trick, because while Gunhild didn't return to the abbey, she didn't have any known children either.

So I have to assume that she heard the threats loud and clear.

It's either that, or she didn't, and she died, because she disappears from our record, never to return.

And I'm gonna read these letters in full and throw them up on the members feed, just so you know that I'm not making any of this up.

But as salacious as these letters are, I do think that they're more broadly important because it shows us who was the sort of man who was rising to prominence in this new, violently emboldened and radicalized church.

A church that was just on the precipice of starting invasions in foreign lands in the name of God.

It's also important to note that this is the sort of thing that's going on in the background of England at the same time that Rufus was celebrating getting Anselm to serve as Archbishop.

So, not exactly stabilizing behavior or encouraging normalcy.

Instead, everyone seems to be fully embracing the chaotic energy of the era.

And speaking of that chaotic energy, there's still the matter of King Malcolm Canmore, because Rufus had picked that fight.

And next week, we're gonna get to it and all of the unpredictable outcomes that flowed from it.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, you can reach me at the British History Podcast at gmail.com.

And you can also join us on Blue Sky.

We're at the BHP.

Thanks for listening.

But we're never gonna survive

unless we get a little crazy.