Anselm of Canterbury (Doctor Magnificus)

Hailing from noble Burgundian lineage in Aosta, Anselm entered the Norman Abbey of Bec under Lanfranc, succeeding him as abbot and establishing Bec as a supreme center of intellectual inquiry. In 1093, he reluctantly accepted the Archbishopric of Canterbury.

In his Proslogion, he presented the ontological argument defining God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived." His treatise Cur Deus Homo fundamentally reshaped Western atonement theology, while his defense of church liberties against Anglo-Norman monarchs led to repeated exile.