The Prayers And Meditations Of St. Anselm Of Canterbury

In the eleventh century, there was a change, not in the fundamental way in which prayer arose out of compunction, nor in the scriptural basis of meditation, but in an expansion of the kind of material used to express such prayer. This change is attributed to Anselm of Canterbury; it was so profound that it has been called ?the Anselmian transformation.? Anselm?s prayers and those of his imitators had been perpetuated by the Maurist edition of Dom Gabriel Gerberon in 1675, and by Migne in his use of Gerberon?s text for Patralogia Latina in 1883. These are intimate prayers and while it is possible to see what light they throw on Anselm?s personality, it is important to see the Prayers and Meditations as a key part of the Christian spiritual tradition. The study of the small body of Anselm?s genuine devotional works shows his place in Christian spirituality and theology. Keywords: Anselm?s prayers; Anselmian transformation; Canterbury; Christian spirituality; medieval devotion; Prayers and Meditations ; theological conviction