Welcome to the British History Podcast. My name is Jamie, and this is episode 472, Radicals.

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at the British History Podcast.com for about the price of a latte per month. And thank you very much

to David, Andrew, and Matt for signing up already. We've spent a lot of time with the situation

between Anselm and Rufus and all of their messy

interpersonal drama. But we haven't really discussed the true elephant in the room.

Radicalism. The fact is, Anselm was just one of many bright-eyed zealots who were dragging the church into a period of deep radicalization.

And from the very first moment, he started getting involved in English politics.

Anselm had been seeking to dramatically change the relationship between the church and the crown.

That was his purpose behind extracting all of those concessions from Rufus, as well as the English

bishops, before he'd even consider accepting the archbishopric.

And had the king not been on death's door, I suspect that Anselm's story within England would

have ended right there. But that illness had changed things. And suddenly, Anselm had a lot of leverage

and he used it to great effect. Though when the king recovered, he was pretty pissed about all those things he'd been made to promise.

And honestly, he had a pretty good point there.

This whole situation reeked of duress.

But the point is that right from the start, Anselm had been seeking to wield power and institute changes within England.

And this current conflict is no different.

While Edmer would have us believe that this feud between Anselm and Rufus was about money,

specifically Rufus's endless desire for it, if you look more closely at the actions

being taken and the words being spoken, I think you'll see that this wasn't about money at all.

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