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Lanfranc

Name: Lanfranc

Achievements: Archbishop of Canterbury.

Born: c.1005, at Pavia, Lombardy, Italy

Died: 28 May 1089, at Canterbury, Kent, England.  Aged 84

Field & Discipline: Religion; Ecclesiastic

Language: Latin; Italian; English

Father: Hanbald

Mother: Roza of Pavia

Siblings: Unknown

Spouse: None

Children: None

Education: Pavia

Major Work:

“The Body and Blood of the Lord” (c.1059-62)

Life & Times:

After studying and practising civil law in Pavia, in 1035 Lanfranc became a student of the liberal arts and theology under the young scholastic theologian Berenger at the cathedral school of Tours in France. Here Lanfranc excelled in dialectic (arguing “for and against” cases) and in 1039 opened his own school at Avranches in Normandy, where he gained fame as a teacher.

However, only three years later, in 1042, he entered the newly founded Benedictine monastery at Bec (also in Normandy) in order to become a monk, where, after three years of seclusion, he was appointed prior under Herluin of Bec.

As prior of Bec, Lanfranc resumed teaching and established a school there which became one of the most famous of the time. At Bec, Lanfranc taught grammar, [taught theories of] Aristotle’s* dialectic, Cicero's rhetoric and the patristic writings of both testaments, chiefly Jerome and Augustine.

His pupils included [taught] Anselm of Bec*, Anselm of Lucca (later Pope Alexander II). During the following decade (1045-55), as a dialectician and theologian, he wrote commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul, the “Collationes” of Cassian, and other works, concentrating, like Berengar, on a thorough study of the text.

Meanwhile, in the Eucharist controversies he defended the orthodox position against Berengar (who denied that any material change in the elements - the bread and wine - was needed to explain Christ's presence in the Eucharist) at the councils of Rome and Vercelli in 1050, and at Tours in 1059. He then wrote his celebrated work “The Body and Blood of the Lord”, c.1059-62, which with the aid of dialectic argued for the real presence of Christ's Body and Blood (i.e. for transubstantiation) in the form of bread and wine in the Eucharist.

During the 1050s Lanfranc became involved in political as well as theological disputes but, having first been an opponent of the marriage of William of Normandy (the future William I of England) to Matilda of Flanders in 1053, Lanfranc and William were later reconciled and by 1060 Lanfranc had become one of the king's closest advisers.

In 1063 William made him first abbot of his new monastery, St. Stephen's at Caen, and after the conquest of England in 1066 nominated him to the see of Canterbury as soon as the incumbent, Stigand, was deposed. Finally, against his inclination and only on papal order, Lanfranc was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury by the Bishop of London on 29 August 1070. Lanfranc's work at Bec was continued by his celebrated pupil Anselm of  Bec.

During his tenure as archbishop, Lanfranc worked in close collaboration with William the Conqueror and embarked upon a moderate course of reform and reorganization of the English Church.

Unlike Pope Gregory VII, Lanfranc agreed with William that church reform was the king’s responsibility, but his reforms concerning clerical celibacy, marriage, and cathedral chapters, and the replacement of the Anglo-Saxon bishops and prelates (the last being Wulfstan of Worcester) with Norman churchmen, brought the English Church into close contact with the Gregorian reform movement in Europe, and to the papacy. Overall, Lanfranc worked with William to maintain the fullest possible independence for the English Church, while also successfully attempting to protect it as much as possible from royal and other secular influences.

In 1072 he triumphed over archbishop Thomas of York, who had refused to recognize the supremacy of Canterbury, and in 1076 he passed a decree requiring clerical celibacy. Also in 1076, he produced a famous ordinance which created a separate system of ecclesiastical courts (entirely independent of the civil justice system), into which he introduced pre-Gregorian collections of canon law.

Lanfranc also called frequent councils (synods), during which bishops and other church leaders convened to discuss the regulation of doctrine and discipline, and altogether his many reforms, despite their unpopularity with a large section of the English clergy, infused new life into English monasticism.

During the 1070s, Lanfranc rebuilt within seven years the cathedral at Canterbury, which had been destroyed by fire in 1067, with a palace for himself, and two hospitals for the poor.

In 1075, Lanfranc again gained favour with William I by discovering a conspiracy against him by the earls of Norfolk and Hereford, and on William's death in 1087, Lanfranc ensured the royal succession for William II Rufus, persuading the English militia to support him against the partisans of his elder brother, Robert II Curthose, Duke of Normandy.

Extra Connections:  Influenced by [influenced by] Fulbert of Chartres*

A follower was[a follower was] Abelard*

Assessment:  A reforming Archbishop of Canterbury, he aided in the rapid entrenchment of the Normans in newly-conquered England.

Oneliner: Lanfranc, medieval Archbishop of Canterbury

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