Lanfranc, Prior of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury
28 May -- Commemoration
If celebrated as a Lesser Festival,
Common of Bishops, page 483
Lanfranc was born in Pavia, Italy, around the year 1005. At
the age of thirty-five, he became a monk of Bec, in
Normandy, where he founded the school which rose rapidly to
renown throughout Europe. In 1062 William of Normandy
appointed him Abbot of Caen, then in 1070 Archbishop of
Canterbury. Lanfranc was a great ecclesiastical statesman,
overseeing administrative, judicial and ecclesial reforms
with the same energy and rigour that the Conqueror displayed
in his new kingdom. Lanfranc did not forget his monastic
formation: he wrote Constitutions for Christchurch,
Canterbury, based on the customs of Bec, and appointed many
Norman abbots to implement his vision in the English abbeys.
He died in 1089.