St Anselm (d. 1109) is the most interesting theologian and philosopher of his time. In many respects, his career encapsulates the principal intellectual, religious, and political developments of high medieval Europe. In 1060, Anselm took monastic vows at the abbey of Bec, a reformist community in Normandy, where he was soon promoted to the office of prior and subsequently elected abbot. In 1093 he was elected archbishop of Canterbury, and became a dynamic representative of the new papal claims for the freedom of the Church from the control of lay rulers. Throughout, he wrote theological and spiritual treatises which still resonate today. Anselm was also an avid letter-writer, and his correspondence is one of our best testimonies to an active, cosmopolitan, and cultured life in the Middle Ages.