4 - The ladder of all high designs

Summary

The false God changes suffering into violence. The true God changes violence into suffering.

Simone Weil

Almost everything we call ‘higher culture’ is based on the spiritualization of cruelty, on its becoming more profound: this is my proposition.

F. Nietzsche

Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) came from Aosta, in the foothills of the Alps, but by the age of twenty-six had settled at the monastery of Bee, in Normandy, drawn by the fame and energy of Lanfranc. He arrived during what may be regarded as the peak of Norman expansion and achievement. Eleventhcentury France contained a number of powerful dukedoms, all expanding and given to brutal military conquest, and the Normans were probably the most successful of these. ‘The arrogant self-confidence of these rulers’ aggressive campaigns’, writes David Bates, ‘as well as the essential instability of French society at this time, are contextual matters which cannot be over emphasised.’ Seven years after Anselm's arrival at Bee, William, Duke of Normandy, invaded England. William was well known for cruelty even in an age of cruelty, and the ‘harrying of the North’ in the winter of 1069/70 was condemned by contemporaries. At the same time he took his responsibilities as a Christian ruler with great seriousness. He is said to have attended mass every day. The church prescribed one year's penance for each person killed in battle. William, who probably lacked the necessary longevity, built abbeys as a penance instead, endowing them, as well as existing establishments, with land and wealth.