Sally N. Vaughn,Archbishop Anselm 1093–1109;Andrew Chandler and David Hein,Archbishop Fisher,1945–1961

Andrew Chandler and David Hein, Archbishop Fisher, 1945–1961 , Ashgate: Farnham, 2012; 270 pp.: 9781409412328, $99.95 (hbk), 9781409412335, £19.99/$39.95 (pbk), 978140956674, $39.95 (ebook)

Geoffrey Fisher was the first Archbishop of Canterbury to visit a pope since the journey to Rome made by Archbishop Thomas Arundel in 1397. Historic as Fisher’s visit was, the reader of this review may see as sleight of hand the use of this fact to somehow shorten the yawning gap between the subjects of these two volumes. Indeed the 835-year gap between Anselm’s death and Fisher’s enthronement still leaves a space of virtually 300 years between the end of Anselm’s episcopate and Arundel’s Rome pilgrimage. So what are the parallels? The only obvious similarity between these two volumes is the interesting and imaginative methodology. Each biography is followed by a limited collection of source documents from which some of the research has been drawn: this method will be a continuing feature of this series of biographies of Archbishops of Canterbury. Perhaps it is best if any further parallels or contrasts are allowed to arise from the two reviews.

Vaughn’s biography both garners illumination from Richard Southern’s two biographical accounts (themselves separated chronologically by some twenty years) and is critical of Southern. She makes impressive use of the significant volume of material still extant from Anselm’s archiepiscopate. In this, she is indebted to not only his scholarly and spiritual writings but also the remarkable surviving correspondence, from the period of his primacy.

Vaughn’s contention is that the two key issues in understanding Anselm’s life and achievement as archbishop are his earlier formation at the Benedictine monastery in Bec and his remarkable statesmanship in relation to both King William Rufus (William II) and King Henry I. Her prologue is unashamedly opinionated, but it helpfully introduces the systematic argument which she will pursue and sustain throughout the book. Key themes are Anselm’s determination to share kingship and rule, and also his perception of his work as that of a missionary to Britain – even as a successor to his fellow Italian, Augustine, in the sixth and seventh centuries.

Southern, Vaughn argues, follows Norman Cantor’s earlier assessment of Anselm purely as a theologian and spiritual leader. She counters this conclusion in her careful analysis of Anselm’s tortured relationships (resulting effectively in two exiles) with both Rufus and his brother, Henry I. Vaughn marshals her evidence well, but there is no doubt that this is a polemical book. This means that it suffers on occasion from repetition, with her attempts to hammer home her argument on Anselm’s statesmanship and political acuity. She sets out a broader pattern of influence and formation by looking back to the contribution of Anselm’s predecessor, Lanfranc, and to his own formative contribution in both Bec and Canterbury. The pattern built up by both archbishops and their fellow Benedictine monks also has, she argues, a reciprocal impact on the mother house at Bec and its other satellite houses, both in England and in continental Europe.

Alongside her emphasis on Anselm’s statesmanship and political skills, Vaughn still adverts to his remarkable scholarship and erudition. Indeed she indicates how these two facets cross-fertilized each other; in the periods of exile Anselm the scholar continued his theological explorations. In his election as primate, Anselm allowed ecclesiological arguments to fashion his primatial theory. This led to a theory of shared rule with the monarch. He himself used the image of ‘an old sheep yoked to a bull’: this described the relationship between primate and king. With both Henry and Rufus, Anselm would only allow his own election to proceed in a manner in which he was a pawn of neither king nor pope.

Of course, neither William Rufus nor Henry were uncomplicated monarchs. Vaughn sets out Anselm’s strategy in each case clearly and her argument is compelling. Anselm is clear about the distinctions between secular and spiritual jurisdiction but is keen to defend his own bailiwick. Vaughn argues that the impetuous and volatile Rufus does not lose his life by accident. Henry is less volatile but no less political, and again exile for Anselm is the ultimate result despite a more fruitful start to the relationship. Anselm’s vision of primacy was to be patriarch of another world, free from the shackles of both papacy and monarchy. Towards the end, Vaughn notes: ‘Anselm was perhaps England’s most successful archbishop’ – and then her final sentence: ‘Never again was Canterbury to attain the glory and prestige it had reached under Archbishop Anselm’ (p. 166).

Certainly, nine hundred years on, Geoffrey Fisher inherited a very different mantle. By now, there was no disputing that the Archbishop of Canterbury was in title, at least, the Primate of All England. The power associated with such a title, however, had filtered away into the fertile earth of England. Of course, almost exactly half way through the intervening period, the Reformation had taken its course. Issues relating to the papacy had disappeared leaving the monarch as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Nonetheless, despite the title this did not mirror any of the tensions that Anselm had with monarchs. Indeed, Fisher’s crowning of Queen Elizabeth II was both an iconic moment for him (for obvious reasons) as well as focusing much of his understanding of his role as primate and of the role of the Church of England within a constitutional monarchy in the twentieth century.

Hein and Chandler set the scene well in their introduction entitled ‘Out of the Ruins … ’ Fisher assumes the role immediately after the end of Hitler’s war, and following the tragically brief two-year primacy of the prophetic William Temple. The country was bankrupt, with a socially reforming government and with a church that now looked desperately unreformed and Victorian in its self-understanding. Fisher is characterized in this biography as having all the abilities of a well-organized administrator – abilities well-honed during his time as Headmaster of Repton School. These abilities were then further attuned to the needs of the Church of England during Fisher’s time first as Bishop of Chester and then Bishop of London.

The authors are clear that Fisher was a reforming archbishop in a number of different spheres. Most notably of all, he effected the first revision of canon law since the Reformation. He also brought astute governance to the Church Commissioners, formed anew by bringing together two separate trust bodies – the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and Queen Anne’s Bounty: the new body was set up under statute. His key collaborator in this, Malcolm Trustram Eve, was a wealthy and wise businessman. The effect of these reforms was to assure clergy of more reasonable and equal stipends and the emergence of a proper pension scheme. Fisher worked well with Rab Butler, the architect of the 1944 Education Act, to get a good deal for church schools. Fisher was not a prophetic archbishop nor indeed was he a scholar (despite a double first at Oxford in Mods and Greeks). He was a pragmatist, an effective administrator, disciplined in his prayer but not an obvious ‘spiritual’ leader. On occasion he could show great courage, as, for example, in his interventions in the House of Lords debate on Suez in 1956: he intervened and challenged the government eight times! Chandler and Hein depict his religion as rather mechanical, retaining the form but losing the impulse. He was not well suited to the rising iconoclasm and satire of the 1960s. He left the Church of England in good administrative fettle, but not well prepared for the cultural transformation that the Church would face in the second half of the twentieth century.

So are there any clear parallels or contrasts between these two very able but very different men? We have seen that the instruments of government, both secular and spiritual, within which they worked were radically different. Even so, when occasion required it, Fisher could respond with wisdom, intelligence and courage and challenge the government, as he did on Suez. He understood how English society and polity worked. In this he and Anselm, nine hundred years apart, shared some instincts, albeit that he would never have to lead a church from exile. Intellectually, however, the two men were very different. Fisher was able but neither intellectually inquisitive nor speculative in theology. Anselm was both of these things and they combined to make him one of the most creative theologians of the western tradition; a theological comparator of the twentieth century might be found in Austin Farrer. In spirituality we see from Vaughn’s book an archbishop fashioned by the riches of the Benedictine tradition; Anselm remained a monk in so many of his instincts. This stands in utter contrast to Fisher’s formation in a very different set of communities, that of the great English public schools: discipline, order and organization were key words. Religion fashioned Fisher’s life in a manner which contrasted sharply with that of the monastic tradition.

These two biographies have set a high standard in scholarship, focused on the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury and with challenging perceptions of that role and its effectiveness within Church and nation in England. Both archbishops are acclaimed for their achievements but their flaws are not left unconcealed.