Abélard would naturally look about for the first theological teacher in France. There were, in point of fact, few theological chairs at that time, but there was at least one French theologian who had a high reputation throughout Christendom. Pupil of St. Anselm of Canterbury at Bec, canon and dean of the town where he taught, Anselm of Laon counted so many brilliant scholars amongst his followers that he has been entitled the ‘doctor of doctors.’ William of Champeaux, William of Canterbury, and a large number of distinguished masters, sat at his feet. His _scholia_ to the Vulgate were in use in the schools for centuries. He and his brother Raoul had made Laon a most important focus of theological activity for more countries than France. England was well represented there. John of Salisbury frequently has occasion to illustrate the fame and magnitude of the cathedral school. Anselm had been teaching for forty years when Abélard, _aetat._ thirty-four, appeared amidst the crowd of his hearers. We can well conceive the fluttering of wings that must have occurred, but Laon was not Paris, and Anselm was not the man to enter upon an argumentative conflict with the shrewd-tongued adventurer. Two incidents of contemporary life at Laon, in which Anselm figured, will be the best means of illustrating the character of the theologian. Abbot Guibertus, of that period, has left us a delightful work ‘_De vita sua_,’ from which we learn much about Laon and Anselm. The treasure of the cathedral was entrusted, it seems, to seven guardians—four clerics and three laymen. One of these guardians, a Canon Anselm, was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He purloined a good deal of the treasure; and when the goldsmith, his accomplice, was detected, and turned king’s evidence, Anselm denied the story, challenged the goldsmith to the usual duel, and won.[12] The canon was encouraged, and shortly set up as an expert burglar. One dark, stormy night he went with his ‘ladders and machines’ to a tower in which much treasure was kept, and ‘cracked’ it. There was dreadful ado in the city next day; most horrible of all, the burglar had stolen a golden dove which contained some of the hair and some of the milk of the Virgin Mary. In the uncertainty the sapient Master Anselm (no relation, apparently, of Canon Anselm Beessus, the burglar and cathedral treasurer) was invited to speak. His advice largely reveals the man. Those were the days, it must be remembered, when the defects of the detective service were compensated by a willingness and activity of the higher powers which are denied to this sceptical age. When their slender police resources were exhausted, the accused was handed over to a priest, to be prepared, by prayer and a sober diet of bread, herbs, salt, and water, for the public ordeal. On the fourth day priests and people repaired to the church, and when the mass was over, and the vested priests had prostrated themselves in