Talk:Anselm of Canterbury/Archive 1

Rationalisation needed
This badly needs to be rationalised. The section on the works seems to say everything twice, as though two explanations have been placed one after the other and not integrated. I take it the first comes from the Britannica, and the second is by an American, judging from the spelling. This needs cut. --Doric Loon 21:01, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if it has been rationalised since, but the last few paragraphs of his biography part don't make sense to me. It requires readers to know in advance more or less the detail of the Investiture controversy, i think. for instance, why did pope Paschal exclude henry I in excommunicating kings and nobles? And therere some wrong or at least unconfirmed facts in his bio: some sources (i forgot which) say that he left home in 1057 instead of 1059, and Hopkins's Anselm of Canterbury, which you can read online, says it's 1056. and according to my Britannica 2003, he finished Cur Deus Homo? in "the village of Liberi, near Capua". I also found some others contradictory to either my Britannica or Standford Encyclopedia.

And his WRitings. I'm not a native English user, so some of my claims would be misleading. But if you look through it, youll easily find some obvious grammatical mistakes (and i don't point out which to natives). The first paragraph is too long and with grammatical mistakes makes reaading hard. YOu'll see it in the second sentence (and who is 'a schoolman' in that sentence?) And as DOric Loon says in the above, some are reiterated over and over again (especially in Cur Deus Homo arg). So 'what's the point?' goes. i think it might be convenient to divide into two - philsophical and theological influences of his. Anselm's ontological argument about the existence of GOd is highly regarded i the field of philosophy, while the other, the satisfaction theory part is not. (though I know its hard). Thanks for reading:)Hans castorp81 20:17, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Reference section
The references cited are pretty old. Saying that the best criticism of his work is a book in 1896 seems questionable. There is a much more recent set of references on Anselm in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Johnor 23:26, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Major clean-up
I've just done a major clean-up of this article. I added some much-needed section headings and paragraph breaks, removed redundant text, added links, simplified and clarified some writing (removing about 1,000 commas in the process) and generally made things clean and pretty. I'm not an Anselm scholar, so I didn't change or add any facts except in a few minor cases where I could find verification and an addition or change was needed for clarification (e.g., changing "Pope Paschal" to "Pope Paschal II"). Enjoy! KarlBunker 02:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Correct link for antipope Clement
In following the link to Clement III I was redirected to Pope Clement III instead of antipope Clement III. I beleive this is the proper link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope_Clement_III

Also, I hope you don't mind if I pass on a few suggestions for the antipope Clement III page. I thought the introduction of Matilda was rather abrupt and that the mention of Henry's withdrawal from Italy was a bit sketchy.

Thanks for these great pages of history.


 * I fixed the Antipope Clement III link KarlBunker 23:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Response from Mark R. Dobbins
Dear Members:

I apologize for my silence during the ongoing discussion regarding my 2000 article on Anselm of Canterbury. A kind friend only recently pointed out the Wikipedia article containing a footnoted reference to the article, and the ongoing - and highly stimulating -debate it caused. I am now writing a response that I hope to post in the near future. Until that time, I would like to clarify a few points: 1. I am no longer an undergraduate student. I am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the History of Art at the University of Delaware. 2. My fields are Baroque Italian Painting (major field) and Gender Studies in the History of Art (minor field). I never claimed to be an expert in the field of "Anselm Studies." 3. I would appreciate it greatly if the personal attacks against my credentials or lack thereof would cease.

Thank you. I look foward to clarifing the history of the article I wrote in 2000, and my intent in writing it, shortly.

Mark R. Dobbins University of Delaware mrd4331@yahoo.com

BA History of Art (Honors College) - Southern CT State University 2000 Thesis: Caravaggio's "Entombment of Christ" Reconsidered MA History of Art - University of Delaware 2007 (proposed date) Thesis: Textual and Visual Sources for Caravaggio's "Narcissus:" The Basis for a Reinterpretation Ph.D. Candidate - University of Delaware
 * Hello, Mr. Dobbins. I may be the only person reading this page who has any memory of the debate you're referring to. It dates back to Jan-Feb of 2006 and is currently "archived" in "/Archive 2" at the top of this page. The person who originally cited your article no longer appears to be actively involved with this article, nor is my major antagonist in the Jan-Feb debate. As you've seen if you've read through that (painfully long) archive, the debate was settled in terms that I think you'll largely agree with, although the citation to your article was unfortunately removed as not quite fitting Wikipedia's standards for a reliable source, I still believe what I said during that debate: that your undergraduate article on the subject was the best, neatest, most appropriate analysis of the whole "Dilecto dilectori" issue I've ever read. KarlBunker 22:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Saints and Naming
Saints, as a general rule, tend to have a lot of places named after them. I've spent a while now trying to gather, through searches, information on entities with the name "Anselm", and the most concise list is currently at Saint Anselm's, as is the case with Saint Mary's for consistency, but this list is by no means complete. Anselm is the name of many places, not just in English but also Anselmo in Spanish and Anselme in French. Please feel free to tidy up and Wikify the current disambiguation. ''See Saint Anselm's. Madeinsane 17:10, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

"Dilecto dilectori" section
I've removed the following phrase from the section:
 * "especially because "dilecto dilectori" can also be traslated as "Love's lover", "Love" being a pseudonym for God commonly used by Christians thoughout the ages (compare )."

My reason for removing it is that it gives the incorrect impression that the debate is based on nothing more than poor translation of a single phrase that Anselm used. To correct this misimpression it would require getting into a deeper discussion those writings of Anselm's that have given rise to the debate in the first place. See the earlier version of this diff for some illustrative quotes from Anselm. I feel that expanding the section in this way would give too much attention to a minor issue. KarlBunker 18:10, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It does appear that KarlBunker is in the right here (assuming the quotes in the diff above are accurate). I have tightened the section a bit further. As Karl says, we don't want to give undue weight to such speculations. --Fl e x (talk|contribs) 19:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Karl said he unlinked homosexual in this section because "people know what it means." Most people do, but reading this guideline, I think the link is still helpful here because the section exists to discuss Anselm's purported homosexual inclination. (By comparison, I would certainly not link to male here.) --Fl e x (talk|contribs) 20:26, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Point taken. I'm still inclined to think it's unnecessary, but not enough to argue about it. KarlBunker 20:56, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * If the "sometimes" translated phrase is all that is given then it implies that there are other, perhaps more correct (?), translations of the phrase that will not be confusing to people or seem to be an attempt at a smear campaign. The quotes in the older version of the article Karl cites above have no references.  If the current paragraph is too shallow to not mislead readers then perhaps the quotes, with references, and further discussion should be put back into the article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 192.5.156.252 (talk • contribs).
 * The quotes given in that earlier version are available in Southern's book (you can read them at Amazon, via their "search inside" function). Personally, I don't think the current version is "too shallow." I think confining the quotations to simply "dilecto dilectori"/"beloved lover" gives the most succinct and least-lurid gist of the origins of the debate. Giving the more extensive quotes would have some lurid shock value, but I think that, unless the article went into a lot of cautionary language (as Southern's book does) about not "reading" the quotes by overly-contemporary standards, including them would be misleading. So again one gets into the problem of devoting too much space to an issue that most scholars consider to be a fairly minor point. KarlBunker 23:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Nationality
Saints can be placed in multiple categories as to their country of origin. Anselm can go in both Category:Italian saints, as he was from Italy, and Category:British saints, as he lived in Britain for 16 years. On the other hand it is inadvisable to leave him in the main Category:Saints, which becomes too large very easily. If no one offers a real objection I will add the appropriate categories.--Cúchullain t/ c 02:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Done.--Cúchullain t/ c 21:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Archbishop of Canterbury infobox
The "Archbishop of Canterbury" infobox isn't working right (in this or other articles). Inserting the template below in an article's talk page is supposed to enter the article into a category that will hopefully bring this to the attention of someone who knows how to fix this. RedSpruce (talk) 16:35, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Or you could have just posted here or on the template talk page. I'm assuming the problem is the Unknown part in the "enthroned" field? The problem is that the "began" field is being used as an "enthroned" title. Not all medievel archbishops have that date know. I've added "unknown" to the field. I've given up working on the archbishop template, because when I finally get it working, someone comes along and "improves" it and breaks it again. It should be working on this page correctly now. I'll go ahead and fix all the before 1500 archbishops now. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:41, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Excellent. Thanks. I've removed the template, now that the fix is done. RedSpruce (talk) 12:24, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Shield of the Trinity
I'm not sure why the "Shield of the Trinity" diagram was added to this article, since there's no evidence that this diagram was in use until about a hundred years after Anselm of Canterbury's death, as far as I'm aware. Also, from the summary given on the article page, Anselm's philosophical approach to the Trinity would appear to have a very different emphasis from the quasi-logical approach (taken from the Athanasian Creed) of the Shield of the Trinity diagram. AnonMoos 06:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * No one had defended the inclusion of this image, so per AnonMoos, I'll remove it. RedSpruce (talk) 12:28, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Heh. I'm just letting Anselm languish in obscurity. WAY too much philosophical stuff to deal with to work up the article. I just try to keep obvious vandalism out. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:41, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Tag at top of article
I added a number of references from two RS to the article. I didn't touch the Archbishop of Canterbury section much, as my refs gave very different details which were rather hard to reconcile. And I left the Works/thought section virtually the same as it was. Can the citation needed tag at the top of the article be taken down now? carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 09:10, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Anselm's career as archbishop is the subject of some controversy in the academic world, with two differing views of his motivations for his various actions. The main works would be Richard Southern's two biographies and Sally Vaughn's biography, plus a number of journal articles. Briefly, Southern sees Anselm as an otherworldly philosopher with little grasp of political matters, and Vaughn sees Anselm as a reasonably skilled political actor. While both agree on the actual actions Anselm took, they disagree on the reasons behind those actions. Someday, I'll get around to actually working on this article. I didn't put the tag on, you'd be better off asking whoever did. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Apparent discontinuity
In the section "Archbishop of Canterbury under William," Anselm moves to Lyon, then in the next paragraph he leaves Rome for Schiavi. I think this needs some work. Mrgate3 (talk) 21:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I think I'll just delete that last sentence of the section. It's leftover from before my overhaul. It doesn't add much of value, given that Cur Deus Homo is mentioned in the writings section. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions)


 * Done. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 20:50, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Canonization
The article body has the (referenced, it appears) statement that Anselm was never formally canonized, although he is venerated both in Anglican and in Roman Catholic tradition and was proclaimed Doctor of the Church in 1720. The infobox otoh claims he was canonized under Pope Alexander VI (r. 1492-1503), but this is unreferenced. I am removing this claim pending attribution. --dab (𒁳) 06:43, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * comparing other articles (it:, de:) I find it is a commonly repeated claim that Anselm was canonized in 1494, in apparent contradiction to our article here. I consequently left both claims in place but have tagged them. Somebody will need to look into this. --dab (𒁳) 06:50, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Text from EB1911
To check whether this text contains text copied from EB1911 you can run If it does then please do not remove the EB1911 citations that cover the text or the attribution template in the References section (see WP:PLAGIARISM). -- PBS (talk) 09:30, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Earwig's Copyvio Detector
 * There is no need for the (ugly and malformed) blanket attribution template provided there are well-formatted inline citations of the article's use. Those should not be removed, until the material is rewritten and the source replaced. At the same time, material copied by the EB11 from the EB9 should be appropriately replaced by references to the EB9 article. — Llywelyn II   04:24, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation
is obvious and (per ) should be left for the "Anselm" Wiktionary entry to handle. Given IPA's specificity, however, if editors here insist on its inclusion, it would be necessary to provide the UK and alt US pronunciations rather than pretending that the Midwestern US pronunciation is the default in all varieties of English. — Llywelyn II   04:24, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Charlesworth
It appears that the citations to Charlesworth have nothing whatsoever to do with his translation of Anselm and only refer to the original content in his introduction. As such, the introduction should be cited directly as an original work, rather than listed as an edition of Anselm's works. The source is offline, though, so restore the Anselm-centric citation if that's in error. — Llywelyn II   04:29, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

ENGVAR
This edit established the usage of the page as American English, which (per ) should kindly be maintained pending a new consensus. (Fwiw, I understand Canterbury is in Britain, but I personally don't see a close national tie to British English here given that we're talking about an Italian who was educated in France to write in Latin, that every noble he talked to in Britain used Norman French, and that Americans are more interested in his theology these days. In any case, AmEng is the default til someone speaks up.) — Llywelyn II   05:23, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

References from 1911 Britannica
Perhaps we might reincorporate into the Reference section of the article some (but not all) of the long list of references from the 1911 Britannica that were recently deleted - not in the context of their being from the 1911 Britannica, but rather as historic references on St. Anselm. They'd be of interest to at least one user (myself) :) Perhaps the ones where the wiki link to the author of the reference work is not red.  I may possibly work on this during future editing sessions.  --Lini 04:07, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * We should restore any references to the sources. Once other sources begin to be incorporated into the article, a blanket "this is cribbed from the EB11 is no longer sufficient. On the other hand, there's apparently no original content in the EB11 articles: apart from its bibliography, the entire thing seems to be cribbed from the EB9. — Llywelyn II   11:51, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Influences and influenced
In the infobox which accompanies this article, only two influences are named: Jesus and Aristotle. Both seem odd. Is Jesus typical for Christian philosophers? It seems appropriate enough to me, but it should be applied consistently at least. Is Aristotle correct? I would think that most of Artistotles corpus was only well-known to the European West later. Plato would, I think, be more accurate. I think we could also add Augustine and maybe Lanfranc, though I don't know that Lanfranc can be considered a philosophic influence. Those he influenced are much wider than Aquinas and Hegel and I don't even think those two are exemplary. I don't know how much influence he had on the Reformers, but I think he had some. I think he could also be said to exert a great influence on all major purveyors of the ontological argument in the last century: Malcolm, Hartshorne, Plantinga, etc. I though I'd bring this up here first, before making and changes on an area that is not my expertise. Srnec 22:11, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd say that Jesus should be removed; that does seem rather vague for a Christian philosopher. And I'm hardly expert in any of this, all the rest of my response is going to be based on the introduction to my copy of Proslogion (trans. and intro. by M.J. Charlesworth). I found a reference that Leibniz was "greatly attracted by the Anselmian argument". Also, it says that in his works Anselm refers to several of Aristotle's works, and that yes he would have been exposed to them as would all scholars at the time while studying dialectics. Also, "...judging from the references in Anselm's own works, later writers such as Leo the Great and Gregory the Great were also closely studied." [in relation to St Augustine]. It also suggests that he got neo-Platonist ideas, albeit by way of St Augustine. Hope this helps a bit. Carl.bunderson 22:27, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * That infobox is gone, but Srnec was right that Jesus nor Aristotle influenced Anselm's philosophy directly. Both were understood 2nd or 3rd hand through St Augustine (with all the attendant but likewise indirect Neoplatonism involved) and Boethius. Apart from the Scholastics, you'd have Descartes and Leibnitz in addition to the modern Anselmians. — Llywelyn II   00:46, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Thoughts on article expansion
See here or here for some source material suggested by User:Ealdgyth.

The primary issue for formatting here seems to be that most of the EB references should be replaced by links directly to Eadmer's biography, which it seems to be based on. (Links to their editorial opinions would need to remain or be updated.)

It also looks like a historiography section might be in order, with a fuller treatment of Eadmer/Vaughn/Southern and perhaps more careful use of their cites elsewhere in the article. — Llywelyn II   15:44, 27 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I strongly suggest not using Eadmer as a direct source for anything. Facts such as dates still need some interpretation through a reasonably recent historian. It's just best practice to do so on Wikipedia. Yes, you can use primary sources but it's better to use secondary sources when they exist, and they exist in good numbers for Anselm. Besides my suggestions mentioned above, Barlow in English Church 1066-1154 has a good treatment of Anselm and there is a brief treatment of the basics of his life in the introduction to the Oxford World's Classics editon of Anselm's works. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:12, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * With respect, that's a misreading of . You're quite right that Eadmer is heavily and at times (being charitable) mistaken. Any interpretation of events he describes needs to be either directly quoted or sourced to modern scholarship for appropriate context. That said, for the bare litany of facts, EB, Butler, Southern, Vaughn, &c. are in great part just retelling Eadmer's account. (Southern and Vaughn document this with their many footnotes pointing to the pages in Eadmer they're recounting.) It is more of a service to provide those footnotes here rather than leave them in in- or only partially-accessible nonhyperlinked texts; moreover, it reduces bias to point to the original the scholars are looking at, allowing one to compare it to their emendations. It's parallel to our linking directly to Biblical verses rather than to the Talmud or patristic commentary: yes, you've got to be careful but it's still the actual source of the material. —  Llywelyn II   01:21, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Other works
Numerous lists of Anselm's works lack Homilae et Exhortationes, Liber Meditationum et Orationum, and Tractatus asceticus but PEF has them and numerous people have translated the "Meditations and Prayers of St Anselm". Are they just extracts from the other works and letters? or are they separate works that the philosophy sites consider infra dig.? — Llywelyn II   23:41, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Give me a sec...Ealdgyth - Talk 00:02, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Richard Sharpe's Handlist of Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 lists the following as Anselm's works: Cur Deus homo; De casu diaboli; De conceptu uirginali et de originali peccato; De concordia praescientiae et praedestinationis; De grammatico; De incarnatione Verbi; De libertate arbitrii; De processione Spiritus Sancti; De sacrifico azymi et fermentati; De ueritate, Epistola ad Waleramnum de sacramentorum diuersitate; Espitolae; Meditationes; Orationes; Monologion; Proslogion; Responsio Anselmi contra Gaunilonem. He then lists as spurious: De altercatione inter Augustinum et Pelagianum; De laude beatae urginis; De motione altaris; De professione monachorum; De XIIII partibus beatitudinis; De VII beatitudinibus; Homilia super Intranuit Iesus sine De assumptione Mariae; Homiles; Similitudines de humanis moribus. I apologize if I messed up some typing in that. I can scan the pages as pdfs tomorrow if you'd like - just drop me an email throuhg the email this user function. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:10, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
 * No, that's fine. I assume Espitolae is Epistolae and the formatting on everything else is subject to formatting. De Fide Trinitatis is well-cited but seems to just be an alt name for De Incarnatione Verbi. Presumably Epistola ad Waleramnum is the De Sacramentis Ecclesiae we've got listed. I guess the Meditationes and Orationes were originally separate works and simply published together later. Maybe the Tractatus Asceticus were the three letters to ascetics we mention already, taken as a separate work. Suppose that makes the Homilae spurious though. — Llywelyn II   04:23, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Works for future article expansion
I generally dislike reading sections since their criteria are utterly vague, inescapably arbitrary, and very subject to creep. I was working on this one since there hasn't been a Wiki-wide policy of excluding them but it's getting to be too long. Since there's no way for any non-expert to determine relative notability/helpfulness and prune other than by cribbing experts and very little way for experts to avoid their own biases, I'll move the #Editions subsection to its own area and the rest here for later reïnclusion as inline sources if they have material helpful for the article. List follows:
 * . (EB11 notes its bibliography)
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Entries with ×2, ×3, &c. reflect the works' appearance in more than one bibliography elsewhere and may imply more notability or importance. A less anecdotal process would be to check Google Scholar and count their citations, but again my preference would be to keep any list like this out of the article itself and just include the works as we use the relevant ones and establish some context. — Llywelyn II   02:54, 20 July 2015 (UTC)