Monologium
Canterbury · 1109
A
Anselm of Canterbury
Anselm of Canterbury
1033 CE–1109 CE · Aosta
Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033–1109) was born in Aosta, in what is now northern Italy, and became a monk at the Abbey of Bec in Normandy, where he served as prior and then abbot for over three decades. In 1093 he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, a post he held—despite two periods of exile driven by investiture conflicts with Kings William II and Henry I—until his death on 21 April 1109. His Proslogion articulated the ontological argument for God's existence, and his Cur Deus Homo provided a systematic satisfaction theory of atonement, establishing him as the father of Scholasticism.
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Stop 1 of 61033–1056Birthplace And Youth
AostaItaly
What they did here
Born here around 1033 to a Lombard father (Gundulf) and a pious Burgundian mother; left at approximately age 23 after conflict with his father and the death of his mother, wandering through Burgundy and France for roughly three years before reaching Normandy.
About Aosta
Aosta, a town in the Alpine northwest of Italy. Anselm, the future archbishop of Canterbury and theologian of the ontological argument, was born there c. 1033.
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Anselm of Canterbury’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
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The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Anselm of Canterbury’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.