Abstract

The stated purpose of this book is twofold: "to look at what was happening to the theological certainties in which Anselm had such confidence, in his own day and in the generation or two after his death" and "to try to distinguish that quality which marks Anselm's thought so distinctively". To this end Evans constructs something of a conversation--she assembles contrasting opinions on various questions--among Anselm of Canterbury, his known contemporaries, and the "new generation" of scholars who followed. Both because Anselm had little influence upon the theologians of the century after his death and because none of the book's "interlocutors" is of the stature of its principal subject the conversation is at times somewhat forced, and even disjointed. The significance of her comparisons is not always clear. Perhaps a broader view of Anselm's proper "community of thought" would have avoided these difficulties; as it is, the author acknowledges the larger tradition of which Anselm was a part only in passing. Nevertheless, the book does explore the shift that occurred in the relation of faith and reason as the centre of mediaeval theologizing moved from the monasteries toward the schools with some measure of success. Evans treats her subject with sympathy and care, and she is attentive to detail. Anselm emerges as a thinker worthy of our admiration and study.