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Stigand occupied a place in or near power for at least fifty years and yet has only been studied very peripherally and in reference to others. He has been vilified or lauded by historians ever since the Conquest. His wealth and methods of acquisition of wealth as well as his political activity have been used to paint him as an ambitious prelate interested only in power and motivated by greed. His unusual advancement to the see of Canterbury and apparent disregard for papal strictures caused him to be used as representative of all of the faults of the Anglo-Saxon Church. Other commentators took the opposite approach and portrayed him as a hero and patriot who resisted the Conqueror until he could no longer put off defeat. Neither of these interpretations is likely to be accurate and neither is wholly supported by the surviving evidence. Much of Stigand’s early life is undocumented and must be inferred within reasonable limits. Most of the sources in which extensive comment about Stigand can be found are post-Conquest and contribute their own particular challenges to discovering the facts about a largely pre-Conquest life. Based on monastic chronicles, Domesday Book, legal documents and the writings of Mediæval historians and commentators, in order to define the context in which he lived and worked including the politics of the English church, the kingdom, the Apostolic See and his lay associates this study is an attempt to clarify the life and career of Stigand, the last and extremely controversial Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury.

This dissertation analyzes the theology and politics of Michael Ramsey between his ordination in 1928 and his retirement in 1974. Ramsey entered the priesthood after a burgeoning career in law and Liberal politics. I argue that Ramsey's later political activism as Archbishop of Canterbury was a continuation of his early political engagement at Cambridge. However, the Anglican Incarnational theological tradition exemplified in the writings of F. D. Maurice, Charles Gore, and William Temple exerted a powerful influence on Ramsey's politics after he entered the priesthood. This dissertation locates Ramsey within that Incarnational tradition, and I argue that the Incarnation was the locus not only of his theological writings and his historical writings on Anglican theology, but also of his political activism in the 1960s and early 1970s. I draw heavily on unpublished letters and autobiographical essays from the Ramsey Papers at Lambeth Palace, as well as on his speeches to ordinands and in House of Lords. Two chapters contain analyses of nearly all of Ramsey's published corpus, with one devoted to his historical writings and the other to his social theological writings. A third chapter analyzes three examples of Ramsey's activism at Canterbury (on legal reform for homosexual acts, the Rhodesian crisis of 1965, and Commonwealth immigration) within the context of his Incarnational social theology. I argue that the primary issue for Ramsey in each example was the affirmation of human dignity and conscience, regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation, and that his belief in the post-Incarnational sanctification of humankind led him to emphasize the social values that he did.

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In recent years a controversy has arisen in the scholarship dealing with St. Anselm of Canterbury. Since R. W. Southern published his biography of Anselm, his views have been widely accepted. In his view, Anselm was a devout monk who spent his life contemplating, with clear insight, profound theological issues. Forced to accept the Archbishopric of Canterbury, Anselm was never content with his responsibilities and longed to return to the simple life of a monk. The result was that Anselm blundered his way through conflicts with the Kings of England, William Rufus and Henry I. Because of his inability to handle himself in political spheres, Anselm was forced into exile twice. Within the last decade, however, Sally N. Vaughn has challenged Southern's prevailing views with a re-examination of the sources. In her opinion, Anselm was an astute politician who determined, early on, that he was destined to be Archbishop of Canterbury. Vaughn tries to show that Anselm carefully orchestrated events so that he was in fact elected to the position. Sally Vaughn's Anselm is very different from the contemplative monk of Southern's book. The controversy now centres on whether or not a devout contemplative monk could also be an astute politician while still maintaining an other-wordly detachment. This is the view of Eadmer, Anselm's companion and first biographer. Southern and Vaughn's views, while defensible from the sources, both fail to recognise, unlike Eadmer, the compatibility of vocations as an archbishop and a monk. This thesis will re-examine the sources--Eadmer's biographies and Anselm's writings--to show that Eadmer's view is the correct one. Anselm clearly transferred his intellectual powers into his monastic vocation and from there used his principles as a guiding force of his episcopacy.

Although the interpretation of Anselm's Cur Deus Homo in the tradition of Albrecht Ritschl, Adolf von Harnack and Gustaf Aulen has led to a suspicion about its usefulness for a Peace Theology, a reading through the lens of more recent scholarship, which assumes its original Catholic, sacramental and sacrificial framework, reveals a beautiful understanding of the cross in this medieval classic that is perfectly compatible with a commitment to nonviolence. Three Mennonite scholars writing in pursuit of an Anabaptist Peace Theology, John Howard Yoder, John Driver and J. Denny Weaver display varying degrees of dissatisfaction with the explanation that Anselm provided in Cur Deus Homo, and none held out many prospects for its usefulness. Yoder highlighted the weaknesses, Driver essentially repeated them, and Weaver went a step further to charge that Cur Deus Homo depicted divinely sanctioned violence and ought to be rejected. They did not demonstrate much awareness of or reliance on the contributions of scholars who have focused on Anselm's theology and context. Reading Cur Deus Homo through the lens of more recent anselmian scholarship reveals that the honour and justice of God are one with the mercy and love of God. Humanity is restored not through punishment, but through the means of satisfaction and reward, while the whole explanation is seen in a sacrificial framework. Anselm's insistence upon human participation, and on satisfaction are very congenial to certain emphases of a Peace Theology, namely, discipleship and restorative justice. The real death understood metaphorically as a sacrifice does not violate the commitment to nonviolence, but strengthens it. A rejection of Anselm's metaphysic, ontology and sacrificial framework, a failure to distinguish between punishment and satisfaction, a failure to reflect from the perspective of the guilty, and a neglect of or ambivalence about the doctrines of the two natures and the trinity all lead to a distorted impression of Cur Deus Homo, concealing the contribution Cur Deus Homo might make to a Peace Theology.

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