9. To Lanfranc

Brother Anselm to his respected lord and father, Archbishop Lanfranc, his own because his own.

As Zacharias the prophet, to exalt the authority of his prophecy, repeats at almost every verse: "Thus saith the Lord; "so to impress upon myself who it is that speaks, to whom, and in what spirit, I like our letters which I so often address to your paternal highness, to bear stamped at their very beginning, "Lord and Master," and "His own because his own." This I so, I don't say I know how to copy, but I have so deeply engraved it in my mind that whatever I intend when I begin my salutation, this always appears in the completed sentence. Wherefore, since I so often write to you under this title, I now asking, complain, and complaining, ask, why you now write back to me so: but I know not to what lord and father of yours; signify it at the beginning of the letter. But if you are writing to your servant and son, why seek to subvert by a relative opposition what you cannot destroy by the opposite negation? I beg, therefore, that as often as I receive a letter from your mightiness, I may either see plainly whom you write to; or may not see whom you do not write to.