Anselm of Lucca

ANSELM OF LUCCA: 1. Anselm Badagius (Badagio): Bishop of Lucca 1057-73, also pope (Alexander II.) 1061-73. See Alexander II., pope.

2. Bishop of Lucca 1073-86; d. at Mantua Mar. 18, 1086. He was nephew and successor of the preceding, and bore the same family name. In 1073 he is designated electus Lucensis by Gregory VII., whom he consulted as to whether he should receive investiture from the king. The pope decided that it should be postponed until Henry IV. had cleared himself of association with his excommunicated counselors and had made his peace with Rome. Henry especially requested that Anselm’s consecration should not take place until after his investiture; and in fact he received the ring and staff from the king’s hand before he was consecrated, Apr. 28, 1075. Soon after, troubled in conscience by this relation, he wished to resign his see and retired to a monastery, but was recalled by Gregory, whom he afterward supported with a more ardent loyalty than any other Italian bishop. His personality counted for much when Guibert of Ravenna had been set up as an antipope, and the struggle of Gregory with Henry IV. and the Lombard bishops reached its height. With Countess Matilda, Anselm was the principal upholder of the papal cause in the north of Italy. He was driven from his diocese, but was entrusted with a vicariate covering the whole of Lombardy. When Gregory felt death approaching, he commended Anselm to Otto of Ostia and Hugh of Lyons as his choice for successor; but Anselm died while still an exile. His most notable literary work was his Collectio canonum, which was incorporated almost bodily in the Decretum Gratiani. Other important writings of his were directed to the ending of the schism; the principal one preserved is the Liber contra Wibertum et sequaces ejus, written in 1085-86 after Gregory’s death. Fragments of a commentary on the Psalms and some devotional treatises attributed to Anselm have also been preserved.

(Carl Mirbt).

Bibliography: The Liber contra Wibertum and Collectio canonica, with spurious works, etc., are in MPL, cxlix.; the former, ed. E. Bernheim, also in MGH, Libelli de lite, i. (1891) 519-528 (cf. Preface, pp. 65-66). His life, written immediately after his death, at the request of Matilda, by Bardo, a priest who had been his close associate, is in MPL, cxlviii. and, with extracts from some of his works, ed. R. Wilmans, in MGH, Script., xii. (1856) 1-35. Consult A. Overmann, Die vita Anselmi Lucensis episcopi des Rangerius, in NA, vol. xxi., 1896; W. von Giesebrecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, vol. iii., Leipsic, 1890; J. Langen, Geschichte der römischen Kirche von Gregor VII. bis Innocenz III., Bonn, 1893; C. Mirbt, Die Publizistik im Zeitalter Gregors VII., Leipsic, 1894; W. Martens, Gregor VII., 2 vols., ib. 1894; G. Meyer von Knonau, Jahrbücher des deutschen Reichs unter Heinrich IV. und Heinrich V., vol. ii., ib. 1894; Wattenbach, DGQ, ii. (1894).