Though he served as Archbishop of Canterbury in England, Anselm (1033-1109) was not English but Italian; he was born in Piedmont (Aosta), a town in the Italian Alps of strategic importance as a crossroads throughout Roman and medieval times. As a young man, Anselm rejected the political career for which his father, an Italian nobleman, has prepared him. Instead, he traveled about Europe for many years as a wondering scholar. Eventually he joined a Benedictine monastery at Bec, Normandy, where he studied philosophy and theology with its famous Lanfranc. Three years later, when Lanfranc left to become Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm became the new Abbott. In 1093, after Lanfranc's death, Anselm again succeeded his former mentor's position and became the next Archbishop. However, partly because of Anselm's devotion to Greek rationalism, partly because he was not servile to King William II and his successor, Henry I, both kings found cause to exile him on several occasions.
Besides his three main theological works, Molologion, Proslogion, and Cur deus homo (Why God Became Man) he wrote on semantics (De grammatico ), truth (De veritate ) and on freedom (Le libertate abitrii ). In his final, unfinished work, called On Power and Powerlessness, Possibility and Impossibility, Necessity and Liberty, he tried to unravel the mystery of how a soul could come into existence....
