35. Anselm to his dearest Adruin

Anselm the archbishop, to his friend and dearest son Adruin, greeting, and the blessing of God.

May God have a care of you even as you care for my good name, for the which I give you thanks. I wrote to you some time ago in answer to those who prate against me, some who prefer to lie in speaking evil of me rather than to speak the truth if there be any good to speak of in me. But just now you ask with affection ate kindness that I would answer those who say that they have often seen in the churches specially belonging to my cure (the priests having been expelled), laymen standing before the altar, collecting alms, boldly usurping the offices of burial and whatever else belongs to the priest by right; concerning which when you inquired, you discovered from the evidence of our archdeacon, worse, so you say, than you had before heard. You have also heard clergy of these churches say that they had often privately, and publicly in the Synod, com plained to me of those offences, but had received no help. I therefore tell you that these things have never been done by my command, or my will, or with my consent. And if I ever heard any complaint about them (which I am not aware that I ever did) I never dismissed it without what appeared to me a sufficient remedy. Finally, I do not think that anything of that sort is done in my churches; but if it ever was, or is, done in others, I am wholly ignorant of it, and so far as I am concerned I neither ever did will nor do I now will that it should be done. It therefore matters not the least to me when I am criticised by those who make these discoveries not from any love of truth, but from malicious motives. But as to what you say you have heard about my not much caring to return to you, I answer that since I left England I have never been able to perceive how I could consistently return. And most assuredly I wish not, neither ought I, to lightly esteem the charge laid upon me by God, and forget the love of the brothers and sons committed to me.