April 21st
Born:
Prince George of Denmark, consort of Anne, Queen of
England, 1653; James Harris, Earl of Mansesbury,
statesman, 1746, Salisbury; Samuel Hibbert Ware, M.D.,
scientific writer, 1782, Manchester; Reginald Heber,
poet, Bishop of Calcutta, 1783, Malpas, Cheshire;
Thomas Wright, historical and antiquarian writer,
1810.
Died: Alexander the
Great,
B.C.
323, bur. Alexandria; Diogenes the cynic,
B.C. 323, Corinth; Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury,
1109, Canterbury; Peter Abelard, eminent French
scholar, 1142; Jean Racine, French dramatic poet,
1699; David Mallet, poet, 1765, Drury Lane, London.
Feast Day: St. Eingan,
or Enean, King of Scots, about 590. St. Anastasius,
surnamed the Younger, patriarch of Antioch, 610. St.
Anastasius, the Sinaite, anchoret, after 678. St.
Benno, abbot of Clynnog, in Carnarvonshire, 7th
century. St. Malrubius, martyr, of Ireland, 721. St.
Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1109.
ARCHBISHOP ANSELM
Few English prelates have
exercised so great an influence on the politics and on
the literature and learning of their age, as Anselm,
Archbishop of Canterbury. He was born at Aosta, in
Piedmont, about the year 1033, and exhibited from a
very early age a strongly marked love for learning and
a monastic life. As these tastes were sternly opposed
by his father, young Anselm secretly left his home,
and after wandering in Burgundy and France full three
years, he at length reached Bec, in Normandy, and
entered himself in the school which had just then been
rendered famous by the teaching of Lanfranc. Here he
soon distinguished himself by the rapidity with which
he acquired learning; but, when pressed to become a
teacher himself, he preferred the monastic state, and
became a monk in the abbey of Bec in the year 1060;
six years afterwards he was chosen prior of that
abbey, and in 1078 he was still further advanced to
the high office of abbot.
During this period he wrote
most of his important works, nearly all of a
theological character, which soon spread his fame
through Western Europe. His piety and numerous virtues
were at the same time so remarkable, that his brethren
in the abbey of Bec believed him to be capable of
working miracles. His friend Lanfranc had been made
Archbishop of Canterbury, and soon after Anselm became
abbot of Bec he paid a visit to England, and passed
some time at Canterbury. He again visited England in
1092, at the invitation of Hugh, Earl of Chester, who
chose to establish monks from Bec in his newly-founded
monastery at Chester.
At this time the see of
Canterbury had been vacant about four years, King
William Rufus having
refused to fill it up, in order
that he might retain the revenues in his own hands,
and it appears that the English clergy had been
already looking to Anselm as a suitable successor to Lanfranc. It is probable that
he had already become
known as a staunch champion of the temporal power of
the Church. During Anselm's second visit to England,
the urgent expostulations of the prelates had overcome
William's selfishness; and early in 1093, while Anselm
was still in England, the King announced his election
to the archbishopric of Canterbury. Anselm at first
refused the proffered honour, but his reluctance was
overcome by the persuasions of his clerical brethren,
and he was finally consecrated on the 4th of December.
The archbishop and the king quarreled at Christmas,
not much more than a fortnight after his consecration.
The subject of dispute was the heriot then usually
paid to the king on the decease of the archbishop,
Anselm refusing to give so large a sum as the king
demanded. A second quarrel soon followed, occasioned
by Anselm's attempt to restrain the king from
trespassing on the rights of the Church. On the return
of the king from Normandy, in November 1094, a third
dispute arose, on a subject of still greater moment in
regard to the papal supremacy in England.
Urban II had been elected Pope
on the 12th of March 1088, but he had not yet been
officially acknowledged by the English monarch, for
the papal election had been disputed. Anselm had
recently written a learned book, his treatise De Incarnatione Verbi, which
he had dedicated to Pope
Urban, and he now demanded the king's permission to go
to Rome to receive the pallium from the pope's hands.
The king not only refused, but burst into a violent
passion, declaring that no one was acknowledged pope
in England without the king's consent. Anselm refused
to yield this point, and a grand council of prelates
and nobles was held, in which nearly all the English
prelates took part on this question with the king
against the Archbishop of Canterbury. Soon afterwards
the king acknowledged Pope Urban, and Anselm received
the pallium, and was outwardly reconciled with the
king; but other quarrels soon occurred, and in 1097
Anselm obtained with difficulty the king's permission
to proceed to Rome. He remained in Italy some time,
and in the spring of 1099 he went to Lyons to wait
there the effect of the pope's expostulations with
William Rufus, but Urban died (July 1099) before this
could be known, and the king himself was killed in
August 1100, while Anselm was still at Lyons.
Anselm was recalled by Henry
I, and taken into favour, but he had now become the
unflinching champion of the temporal power of the
Church of Rome, and we can hardly excuse him for being
himself the cause of many of his quarrels with the
crown, since, in spite of all that King Henry was
willing to do to conciliate the Church, Anselm
remained on no better terms with him than with his
predecessor. On Anselm's return to England began the
great dispute on the question of the investiture. The
prelates of the Church had been accustomed to receive
from the hands of the sovereign the investiture of the
ring and crozier, by which the temporalities of the
see were understood to be conveyed. The pope had been
long seeking to deprive the king of this right, the
question it involved being simply whether the clergy
in England should hold their estates, and be the
subjects of the king or the pope. The council of Rome
in 1099, at which Anselm was present, declared against
the secular power, and decided that any layman
presuming to grant such investiture, or any priest
accepting it, should thereby incur sentence of
excommunication. On Anselm's return to England, it
would have been his duty to receive the investiture
from the new monarch, but, when required to do so, he
absolutely refused, referring the king to the acts of
the council. Henry was; equally firm in withstanding
this new encroachment of the court of Rome, and the
question was finally referred to the new pope, and
Anselm again repaired to Rome, where he had been preceded by an envoy from the
king.
Pascacius II decided against
the king, but Anselm, on his way back, was met by a
message from King Henry intimating that he would not
be allowed to enter England, and he again sought an
asylum at Lyons. The dispute between the king and the
pope was at last settled by mutual concession the
secular sovereign being allowed the right of exacting
homage, but not of investing, and Anselm returned to
England in the autumn of 1106. He spent the remainder
of his days in reforming abuses in the Church and in
writing books, and died, 'laid in sackcloth and
ashes,' on the 21st of April 1109, in the
seventy-sixth year of his age. With the exception of
his violent and unyielding advocacy of the temporal
power of the Church Anselm's character was no less
exemplary as prelate than as a man. He was a person of
great intellectual powers, and it is to him really
that we owe the introduction of metaphysical reasoning into theology, and
therefore a new school fin the
latter science. His works have always held a very high
rank in the Catholic church.
PAPER-MARKS
The water-marks adopted by the
old paper makers to distinguish their own manufactures have engaged the attention
of
antiquaries particularly bibliographers as by their
aid a proximate date to books or documents may be
obtained. In courts of law such evidence has been of
use, and especially so when brought to bear or cases
of forgery, where the paper could be proved of much
more modern date than the document purported to be.
One of the earliest paper
marks consists of a circle surmounted by a cross,
resembling those borne in the hands of sovereign
princes or coronations or state occasions, and typical
of the Christian faith � the cross planted on earth.
This very interesting mark is met on documents as
early as 1301.
The papers manufactured in the
Low Countries, for the use of the first printers, have
a great variety of marks, and shew that the new art
soon gave impetus to the trade of the paper-makers.
Many of them were the marks or badges of noble
families, whose tenants fabricated the paper. Thus the
letter P and the letter Y, sometimes separate and
sometimes conjoined, are the initials of Philip the
Good, Duke of Burgundy (who reigned from 1419 to
1467), and his wife Isabella, daughter of John, King
of Portugal (married 1429), and whose name was, in
accordance with the custom of the age, spelt Ysabella.
The letter P had been used alone as a paper-mark from
the time of the Duke Philip de Rouvere (1349), so that
for 116 years it had been a national water-mark. Other
symbols of the house of Burgundy also appear;
particularly the single fleur-de-lys, which was the
peculiar cognizance of this important family, and is
borne on the shield of arms of the famous Jean-sans-peur.
The Unicorn, the Anchor, and the Bull's head, were
also badges of the family. The Unicorn was the
supporter of the armorial bearings of the Dukes; it
was typical of power and purity, and Monstrelet
relates the fondness of Duke Philip for displaying it
on all occasions. The Bull as typical of power, and
the Anchor of stability and hope, were part of the
fanciful imaginings with which the great of the Middle
Ages delighted to indulge themselves.
It is a very curious fact,
that some of the most ancient technical terms used in
the first printing-offices, are still employed by
modern printers. We all at the present day ask for
paper in accordance with the ancient distinctive
water-marks of qualities or sizes. The fleur-de-lys
just alluded to has long been the distinctive mark of
deny paper; but a still more curious instance occurs
in the foolscap paper, originally marked with a fool's
head, wearing the cap and bells, such as the
privileged jesters of the old nobility and gentry
appear to have worn, from the thirteenth to the
seventeenth century. This curious mark distinguished
the paper until the middle of the seventeenth century,
when the English paper-makers adopted the figure of
Britannia, and the continental makers other devices.
Equal in general interest is
the post-horn; from which post paper takes its name.
This mark was in use as early as 1370. It sometimes
appears on a shield, and in the seventeenth century is
surmounted by a ducal coronet, in which form it still
appears on our ordinary writing paper.
An open hand sometimes
surmounted by a star or cross; with the fingers
occasionally disposed as if in the act of giving the
pastoral benediction of a Churchman, is one of the
oldest paper-marks. It was in use at the commencement
of the fifteenth century and probably earlier. It
occurs on letters preserved in the Record Office of
that early date, and constantly appears on books which
issued from the presses of Germany and the
Netherlands, in the very infancy of the art of
printing; continuing to a comparatively recent date,
and giving the name to what is still called hand
paper.
Most of our readers will no
doubt be familiar with the small square quartoes,
known as pot-quartoes which were extremely popular in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for printing
editions of plays and pamphlets; and which will be
more familiar to modern readers as the size chosen for
the publications of the Camden Society. This paper
takes its name from the pot or tankard in common use
at the time of its original manufacture. It was
particularly characteristic of Dutch paper, and is
found in the account books of Matilda, Duchess of
Holland, still preserved at the Hague. It continued to
be used on paper of different forms and sizes, made in
the Low Countries, and is found on the paper of books
printed at Gouda, Lou-vain, Delft, and other places in
the Netherlands, during the fifteenth century.
The excellence of Dutch paper,
its purity and durability, have never been excelled.
Dr Dibdin, that genuine bibliomaniac, speaks of the
music of the rustle of leaves when turned over in a
good old book. The modern papers, though whiter and
more beautiful to the eye, obtain their qualities by
chemical agencies that carry the elements of decay in
them; and equal in name only the coarser looking but
stronger papers of a past era.
THUNDER AND
THE DAYS OF THE WEEK
'Some write (their ground I
see not) that Sunday's thunder should bring the death
of learned men, judges, and others; Monday's thunder
the death of women; Tuesday's thunder plenty of grain;
Wednesday's thunder the death of harlots; Thursday's
thunder plenty of sheep and corn; Friday's thunder,
the slaughter of a great man, and other horrible
murders; Saturday's thunder a general plague and great
dearth.'
�LEONARD DIGGES's
Prognostication Everlasting of right good Effect,
Loud. 1556.
April 22nd
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