For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For I believe this: unless I believe, I will not understand.

Other historians had seen Anselm as aligned with the papacy against the English monarchs but Vaughn asserts that he acted on his own as a third pole in the controversy his aim being to promote the primacy of the archdiocese of Canterbury. Another council was held in 1108 which focused on enforcing the canons of the 1102 council by creating incentives for the archdeacons who in practice were in charge of enforcing such rules. Anselm then insisted on having the Laigle agreement sanctioned by Paschal before he would consent to return to England.

Anselm was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1720 by a Papal Bull of Pope Clement XI. Called the founder of scholasticism he has been a major influence in Western theology and is famous as the originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God and the satisfaction theory of atonement. Saint Anselm of Canterbury (c.