The Remarkable Tale of the Bull and the Sheep

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Imagine a bull and a sheep harnessed together at the same yoke. What would happen? The most likely thing would be utter chaos as they struggle to separate and go off in their own directions. The plough would slice dangerously about behind them, no furrow would be straight and in the end, the weaker animal would be trampled.This is the scenario evoked by Anselm on the day he was, controversially, made Archbishop of Canterbury.“You are trying to harness together at the plough under one yoke an untamed bull and an old and feeble sheep. What will come of it?”Anselm’s question is the beginning of a remarkable story.What ‘came of it’, that is to say, what happened between the bull, William II, King of England; and the sheep, Archbishop Anselm, in the closing years of the 11th century, is one of the great untold sagas of the medieval period.