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.

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