Lanfranc

Lanfranc (c.1010–89), archbishop of Canterbury (1070–89), was an Italian from Pavia, who moved to northern France in the 1030s, and rose in Normandy before 1066 to be William the Conqueror's chief ecclesiastical adviser. A theologian and teacher of European renown, Lanfranc's presence gave the church in Normandy a prestige which it otherwise lacked; a fact which contributed considerably to the support given by the papacy to the Norman Conquest. Lanfranc originally came to northern France to seek pupils and, around the year 1040, he passed through a spiritual crisis and sought seclusion in the then impoverished abbey of Le Bec. He emerged in the late 1040s and was thereafter always close to the centre of affairs. After 1070 his influence was widely pervasive throughout the Normanized church in England. Among other things, he controversially asserted Canterbury's primacy over York and, as a result, was able to preside over synods of the entire English church which gave a central direction to the efforts of the new Norman bishops. He circulated an abridged, but authoritative, collection of canon law throughout the English church and, through his Monastic Constitutions, he helped several English monasteries to adopt more up-to-date continental customs. His letters reveal a quiet disciplinarian who was also a pragmatist. His close and harmonious co-operation with William the Conqueror assisted the Norman settlement of England and contrasted with the attitudes of his pupil and successor St Anselm, who placed a much greater emphasis on obedience to the papacy and to the rigorist policies of the Investiture contest popes.

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