Christian, in which what looks at first sight like a throned image of our Lord, turns out to be only an allegory of the year and its seasons-nay, in its very population, in which, side by side with keen Italians from the plains and stalwart mountaineers from the Alps, a race diseased in blood for long centuries and degraded to a degeneracy of human organization as hopeless, as in Europe it is without parallel, grins and gibbers about the streets-Aosta still bears the traces of what it was, in its civilization as in its position; the chief place of a debateable land, where Christianity and heathenism, Burgundians and Lombards, Franks and Italians, had met and fought and mixed. The bishopric, founded, it is said, in the fifth century from the see of Vercelli, had been at one time a suffragan see of Milan; its name was written on one of the episcopal thrones which were ranged right and left of the marble chair of St. Ambrose, in the semicircle at the eastern apse of the church which bore his name: on the right, the seats and names of Vercelli, Novara, Lodi, Tortona, Asti, Turin, Aosta, Acqui, and Genoa; on the left, those of Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona, Vintimiglia, Savona, Albenga, Pavia, Piacenza, and Como. But later it had followed the political changes of the Alpine valleys; the Bishop of Aosta is found with those of Geneva and Lausanne figuring at the consecration of a Burgundian king at St. Maurice in the Valais; he received the dignity and feudal powers of a count, and even still he is said to bear the title of Count of Cogne, one of the neighbouring valleys. The district had had its evangelizing saints, St. Gratus, St. Ursus, and St. Jucundus, names little known elsewhere, but meeting us still everywhere

round Aosta. Eadmer describes it as lying on the confines of Lombardy and Burgundy-one of those many Burgundies which so confuse historians;-at this time, that kingdom of Burgundy or Arles which had ceased to be an independent kingdom the year before Anselm's birth, by the death of Rudolf III., 1032, and had become part of the Empire. It included Provence, Dauphiny, South Savoy, and the country between the Saône and Jura (Regnum Provinciæ), with Burgundia Transjurana; North Savoy, and Switzerland between the Reuss and Jura. The valley had formed part of the dominions of the thrice-married Adelaide, the heiress of the Marquises of Susa and Turin, the "most excellent Duchess and Marchioness of the Cottian Alps," as she is styled at the time: her last husband was Odo or Otto, the son of Humbert of the White Hands, Count of Maurienne. From this marriage is descended the house of Savoy and the present line of Italian kings; and of the heritage of this house Aosta henceforth always formed a part, and its name continues among their favourite titles.

The scenery of Anselm's birthplace, "wild Aosta lulled by Alpine rills," is familiar to the crowds who are yearly attracted to its neighbourhood by the love of Alpine grandeur and the interest of Alpine adventure, and who pass through it on their way to and from the peaks and valleys of the wonderful region round it. The district itself is a mountain land, but one with the richness and warmth of the South, as it descends towards the level of the river, the Dora Baltea, which carries the glacier torrents from the mountains round Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn to the plains where they meet the Po. Great ridges,

masking the huge masses of the high Alps behind them, flank its long valley as it runs straight from east to west. Closely overhanging the city on the south, rises rapidly a wall of sub-alpine mountain, for great part of the day in shadow, torn by ravines, with woods and pastures hanging on its steep flanks and with white houses gleaming among them, but towering up at last into the dark precipices of the Becca di Nona and the peak of Mont Emilius. At the upper end of the valley towards the west, seen over a vista of walnuts, chestnuts, and vines, appear high up in the sky, resting as it were on the breast of the great hills, the white glaciers of the Ruitor, bright in sunshine, or veiled by storms: and from the bridge over the torrent which rushes by the city from the north, the eye goes up to the everlasting snows of the "domed Velan," and the majestic broken Pikes of the Grand Combin. It is a region strongly and characteristically marked. The legends of the valley have not forgotten Anselm: they identify the village where he lived, the tower which was the refuge or the lair of his family,' the house in the suburbs of the city where he was born; in the sacristy of the cathedral they show his relics along with those of the local Saints, St. Gratus and St. Jucundus. These legends are not in themselves worthless; there is no reason why tradition should not have preserved real recollections but no documentary evidence appears for them, and it is quite possible that they grew up only because in regions far distant Anselm became a famous man and a saint of the Church. Aosta and

1 The village with the ruined tower is Gressan, a few miles S. W. of Aosta.

its scenery after all has little to do with the events of Anselm's life, and had probably little influence in shaping his mind and character. We only know, on his own authority through Eadmer, or from his letters, that his father Gundulf was a Lombard settler at Aosta, and that he married Ermenberga, who was related to the Counts of Maurienne, the upper lords of the valley. Anselm bore a name which was common at that time in North Italy, and is met with three times in the lists of the bishops of Aosta in the tenth and eleventh centuries. His parents were accounted noble, and had property, for which they paid homage as vassals to the Count of Maurienne. His father was an unthrifty and violent man, who on his deathbed took the monastic habit. His mother, a good woman and a prudent housewife, used to talk to her child, as mothers do, about God, and gained his love and reverence. From Anselm's letters we learn that he had uncles who had been kind to him, and an only sister, married in the district, who did not forget, in after-times, that her brother had become the Primate of distant and famous England We know nothing more of his family.

The only trace of the influence on him of the scenery in the midst of which he grew up is found in the story of a boyish dream which made an impression on him, as it is one of the few details about his life at Aosta which, doubtless from his own mouth, Eadmer has preserved. The story is not without a kind of natural grace, and fits in, like a playful yet significant. overture, to the history of his life. "Anselm," it says, "when he was a little child, used gladly to listen, as far as his age allowed, to his

mother's conversation; and having heard from her that there is one God in heaven above, ruling all things, and containing all things, he imagined, like a boy bred up among the mountains, that heaven. rested on the mountains, that the palace of God was there, and that the way to it was up the mountains. His thoughts ran much upon this; and it came to pass on a certain night that he dreamed that he ought to go up to the top of the mountain, and hasten to the palace of God, the Great King. But before he began to ascend he saw in the plain which reached to the foot of the mountain women reaping the corn, who were the King's maidens; but they did their work very carelessly and slothfully. The boy, grieved at their sloth and rebuking it, settled in his mind to accuse them before the Lord, the King. So having pressed on to the top of the mountain, he came into the palace of the King. There he found the Lord, with only his chief butler: for as it seemed to him, all the household had been sent to gather the harvest; for it was autumn. So he went in, and the Lord called him; and he drew near and sat at his feet. Then the Lord asked him with gracious kindness, who he was, and whence he came, and what he wanted. He answered according to the truth. Then the Lord commanded, and bread of the whitest was brought to him by the chief butler; and he ate and was refreshed before the Lord. Therefore, in the morning, when he recalled what he had seen before the eyes of his mind, he believed, like a simple and innocent child, that he really had been in heaven, and had been refreshed by the bread of the Lord; and so he declared publicly before others."