The writing of letters and the gathering of such letters in Iarge letter-collections is one of the striking features which distinguish intellectual life of the eleventh and twelfth centuries from those immediately preceding and following. This activity blossomed forth from the numerous schools which were attached to the monasteries and cathedrals of western Europe.

In the Middle Ages the writing of letters was closely linked to the writing of verses for teaching purposes. Both exercises were conscientiously practised; they were expressed by the same verb ‘dictare’ which can be rendered as either ‘to write according to dictation’ or “to write poetry'. Thus, as C. Erdmann conclusively demonstrates, the writing of letters became an important and self-consciousgenre of literary composition.’ It provided a means of expression for the culture and the learning of the writers. Yet the letters themselves also have an intrinsic importance in relation to the significance and purpose of their subject matter. Many letters, therefore, acquired a twofold value derived from their form and their content.

Among the most important letter-writers were the teachers and scholars of the monastic and cathedral schools. Their learning, displayed in their writings, made them well-known so that a great number of these teachers were promoted to abbacies and episcopal sees and thus also occupied important political position.

One of these teachers and scholars was Anselm, a native of Aosta, monk, prior and abbot of Bec until 1093 and then archbishop of Canterbury until his death in 1109. In reply to a letter from Warner, a novice of Christ Church Canterbury, Anselm sent a brief piece of spiritual advice in 1104 (Anselmi Epistola, = AEp, 33.5). He added that if Warner wished for more profound counsel on the monastic way of life he should look up an earlier Ietter which he had written to a Dam Lanzo when the latter had been a novice (AEp 37). The letter to Warner was written while Anselm was spending his second exile in Lyon. The letter to Lanzo, prior of the Cluniac house of St Pancras at Lewes 1077-1107, was sent while Lanzo was still a novice at Cluny some thirty years before.