Margaret T. Gibson

"An Italian cleric and teacher of established reputation, Lanfranc came to the Abbey of Bec in 1042 in search of obscurity and refuge from the affairs of the world. His brilliance could not, however, be concealed and he became prior. Amongst his pupils were the future Pope Alexander II and St Anselm, who was also destined to become an Archbishop of Canterbury. When William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, proposed to marry Matilda, daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, the church opposed the match and Lanfranc voiced those objections. William ordered him out of Normandy, but the tale is told that when the prelate was slow to leave his Duke threatened to hurry him on his way with his boot. The response that giving him a decent horse would be more productive tickled William's sense of humour and started a lasting friendship. This no doubt led eight years later, in 1059, to Pope Nicholas II withdrawing the disapproval on condition that two religious houses, the Abbaye aux Dames and the Abbaye aux Hommes, were built in Caen. After the conquest of England, Lanfranc became Archbishop of Canterbury, an office he held from 1070 to 1089, during which time he wrote his consuetudines and made sweeping reforms in the English church, including enforcing celibacy on the priests."--Essential Norman Conquest.

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