St Anselm

John Dillon posted the following piece about St Anselm on the Medieval Religion discussion group to mark his feast today [ slightly adapted by the Clever Boy] :

Anselm (also Anselm of Aosta and Anselm of Bec) was born at Aosta in the extreme northwest of today's Italy and studied in Burgundy.  Drawn by the reputation of its abbot Lanfranc, he moved on to the abbey of Le Bec in Normandy.  Anselm was already an important theologian at the time of his election there as abbot in 1078 (his enthronement took place early in the following year).  While abbot, Anselm followed Lanfranc to Canterbury.  He succeeded him as archbishop there in 1093.  Difficulties with King William II over church/state relationships caused Anselm to spend the late 1090s on the continent, where he found time to add to his substantial body of writing.  Recalled by King Henry I in 1100, he went into a second exile in 1103 and returned only in 1106 after the King had renounced lay investiture, taxation of the church, and confiscation of its property.

Anselm died in 1109; he was buried in Canterbury cathedral.  His Vita by his much younger associate Eadmer (BHL 525, etc.) is deservedly famous; the same author's Miracula of Anselm (BHL 534) provides early attestation of his cult.  St. Thomas Becket failed in an attempt to have Anselm canonized.  King Henry VII was more successful in 1492, getting Pope Alexander VI to authorize Anselm's cult for England.  In 1690, in the wake of England's Glorious Revolution, Anselm was added to the general Roman Calendar.  In 1720, at the request of the Stuart claimant King James III, he was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church.


Some period-pertinent images of St. Anselm of Canterbury:

a) as depicted in a late eleventh-century copy, written at  Jumièges, of his Monologion (Rouen, Bibliothèque Jacques Villon, ms. 359):

http://www.mondes-normands.caen.fr/angleterre/cultures/GB_FR/3/C3-2-anselm.htm

b) as depicted (presenting to Matilda of Tuscany a copy of the book) in a twelfth-century copy of his Orationes sive Meditationes (Admont, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. 289, fol. 1v):

http://www.donbosco-torino.it/image/4-image/Sant_Anselmo.gif

This is an adaptation of the normal iconography of auctorial presentation to an abbot or bishop but with Matilda taking the place of the author-presenter and shown large rather than small (as would be the case with a subordinate presenter).  See Paolo Golinelli's discussion of this problematic image at
pp. 1-3 of his "The Relations between Anselm of Canterbury and Mathilda of  Tuscany" at: www.paologolinelli.it/1/upload/st.anselm.doc

c) as depicted (at centre, between St. Remigius of Reims and St. Omer) in one of four panels of a full-page illumination in the late twelfth-century so-called Bible of Saint Bertin (c. 1190-1200; Den Haag, KB, ms. 76 F 5, fol. 29r, sc. 2B):
http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_76f5%3A029r_min_b2

d) as depicted (author portrait) in a late fourteenth- or very early fifteenth-century book of prayers to the BVM with an Office for her (Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine, ms. 520, fol. 171r):

http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht16/IRHT_06003-p.jpg
e) as depicted (at right; at left, the BVM) in a late fifteenth-century copy of the Interrogatio Sancti Anselmi de Passione Domini in the prose form of its German-language version St. Anselmi Fragen an Maria (1494; München, BSB, Cgm 134, fol. 3v):
http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00095928/image_10

The Immaculate Conception of Our Lady

Today is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady. 

The Immaculate Conception
by José Claudio Antolinez (1635-1675)

Image: Catholicism Pure and Simple blog

At the Oxford Oratory we have been preparing with the usual Novena in church, but this year, unfortunately, I was only free to attend on a few of those days. Yesterday evening we had a very fine celebration of Solemn Vespers and Benediction.

This lunchtime I attended the Low Mass in the Extraordinary Form at the church and this evening I shall return for the Solemn Mass, at which the preacher will bre Fr Richard Biggerstaff of the St Barnabas Society. At the same time there will be another Extraordinary Form Mass celebrated for the feast at SS Gregory and Augustine here in Oxford

Not only is the Oratory under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady but so also is the Archdiocese of Birmingham, so it has a double significance for us.

There is a useful account of the historical development of the dogma underlying the celebration  here. My post from last year Celebrating the Immaculate Conception has a link to an online article about western and eastern traditions regarding the celebration of the feast and, also from last year, St Anselm on the Immaculate Conception provides the beautiful Breviary reading for today from the works of a former Archbishop of Canterbury and Doctor of the Church.

There is another, less well-known, painting by Antolinez of the Immaculate Conception at The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, dating from circa 1670, and is, I assure readers, quite breath-taking to see:

Image: Wikimedia

The painting is, in my opinion, quite lovely - one that stays in the memory with its charm and delicacy and joyful exuberance. Well worth a visit to the Museum for that alone.

José Claudio Antolinez (1635-75) spent most of his painting career working in his home city of Madrid. He commonly painted depictions of the Immaculate Conception, done in a colourful and gentle style, yet also possessing that joyful and exuberant sense. By contrast, Antonlinez himself was known for having a bad temper and a considerable ego. His "haughty character and sarcastic personality gained him many enemies among his contemporaries", and he played maddening jokes on his colleagues. In addition to religious paintings, he also produced several portraits and genre scenes. He died in Madrid from a fever in 1675 after suffering a number of wounds during a fencing match.

Deep night hath come down on this rough-spoken world

And the banners of darkness are boldly unfurled;

And the tempest-tossed Church - all her eyes are on thee,

They look to thy shining, Sweet Star of the Sea.

Fr Faber

St Anselm on the Immaculate Conception

I was struck by the beauty and by the especially rich theological nature of the second Reading at the Office of Readings for today's transferred Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception and I thought I would share it with readers who do not perhaps follow the Divine Office.

From a sermon by St Anselm:

O Virgin, by whose blessing all nature is blessed!

 

Blessed Lady, sky and stars, earth and rivers, day and night – everything that is subject to the power or use of man – rejoice that through you they are in some sense restored to their lost beauty and are endowed with inexpressible new grace. All creatures were dead, as it were, useless for men or for the praise of God, who made them. The world, contrary to its true destiny, was corrupted and tainted by the acts of men who served idols. Now all creation has been restored to life and rejoices that it is controlled and given splendour by men who believe in God.

  

The universe rejoices with new and indefinable loveliness. Not only does it feel the unseen presence of God himself, its Creator, it sees him openly, working and making it holy. These great blessings spring from the blessed fruit of Mary’s womb.

  

Through the fullness of the grace that was given you, dead things rejoice in their freedom, and those in heaven are glad to be made new. Through the Son who was the glorious fruit of your virgin womb, just souls who died before his life-giving death rejoice as they are freed from captivity, and the angels are glad at the restoration of their shattered domain.

  

Lady, full and overflowing with grace, all creation receives new life from your abundance. Virgin, blessed above all creatures, through your blessing all creation is blessed, not only creation from its Creator, but the Creator himself has been blessed by creation.

  

To Mary God gave his only-begotten Son, whom he loved as himself. Through Mary God made himself a Son, not different but the same, by nature Son of God and Son of Mary. The whole universe was created by God, and God was born of Mary. God created all things, and Mary gave birth to God. The God who made all things gave himself form through Mary, and thus he made his own creation. He who could create all things from nothing would not remake his ruined creation without Mary.

  

God, then, is the Father of the created world and Mary the mother of the re-created world. God is the Father by whom all things were given life, and Mary the mother through whom all things were given new life. For God begot the Son, through whom all things were made, and Mary gave birth to him as the Saviour of the world. Without God’s Son, nothing could exist; without Mary’s Son, nothing could be redeemed.

  

Truly the Lord is with you, to whom the Lord granted that all nature should owe as much to you as to himself.

  

Translation by Universalis

St Anselm

St Anselm (c1033-1109), whose feast day it is today, is one of the first Archbishops of Canterbury of whom we have a nearly contemporary image - there is a drawing of St Dunstan and Stigand is depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry.

For Anselm there survive at least three such representations:

  

Anselm's seal as Archbishop of Canterbury

 Image: Wikipedia

 

Image: christchurchwindsor.ca

From an MS Vita of St Anselm

Image:ionarts.blogspot

This one is reminiscent of the figures on the porch ar Chartres I wrote about in connection with St Thomas of Canterbury in late December 2011. They seem a reversal of the contemporary idea of being dwarfs standing on giant's shoulders.

St Anselm on Candlemas

Writing of today's feast St Anselm (c.1033-1109) says

"The wax of the candles signifies the virginal flesh of the Divine Infant, the wick figures His soul and the flame His divinity"

St Anselm
Archbishop of Canterbury and Doctor of the Church

Image: christchurchwindsor.ca

I interpret his comment as indicating when we bear our candles in procession we are like Our Lady carrying the Light of the world in fleshly form into the Temple as we enter our own churches. Here is not only the Lord coming to his own Temple but we express our hermeneutic of continuity with the prophets and the Temple cult as we enter the true enlightenment that is purpose of the Incarnation.


So we conclude the extended Christmas season.

A joyful Candlemas to you all.