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Anselm (Theologian)

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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Of Laon (d. 1117), French theologian, was born of very humble parents at Laon before the middle of the 11th century. He is said to have studied under St Anselm at Bec. About 1076 he taught with great success at Paris, where, as the associate of William of Champeaux, he upheld the realistic side of the scholastic controversy. Later he removed to his native place, where his school for theology and exegetics rapidly became the most famous in Europe. He died in 1117. His greatest work, an interlinear gloss on the Scriptures, was one of the great authorities of the middle ages. It has been frequently reprinted. Other commentaries apparently by him have been ascribed to various writers, principally to the great Anselm. A list of them, with notice of Anselm's life, is contained in the Histoire litteraire de la France, x. 170-189.

The works are collected in Migne's Patrologia Latina, tome 162; some unpublished Sententiae were edited by G. Lefevre (Milan, 1894), on which see Haureau in the Journal des savants for 1895.