EADMER, or Edmer (in Latin Eadmerus, and by mistake Edimerus and Edinerus), an English ecclesiastic and historian of the Norman period, probably, as his name suggests, of English as opposed to Norman parentage. At an early age he was sent to the Benedictine monastery at Canterbury; and there he became acquainted with Anselm, at the time of the latter’s first visit to England as abbot of Bee. The intimacy was renewed when Anselm was raised to the episcopal see; and thenceforward Eadmer was not so much the archbishop’s disciple and follower as his friend and director, and that at last not only by Anselm’s private recognition, but by the formal appointment of Pope Urban II. So complete, indeed, was the obedience shown by the great scholastic philosopher and head of the English Church to his self-elected tutor, that—according to William of Malmesbury, De gestis pontificum Aηglorum, lib. i.—he is said to have waited for his express permission before he rose from his bed, or even turned from one side to the other. After Anselm’s death Eadmer accompanied Radulph, the new archbishop, to Rome in 1119; and on their return in 1120 he was nominated to the see of St Andrews in Scotland. Owing, however, to the refusal of the Scotch to recognize the claims put forward by Eadmer and his patron in support of the episcopal authority of the see of Canterbury, he was never formally inducted into the office. He was at Canterbury in 1121, and he spent the latter part of his life as prior of the monastery there. His death is variously assigned to the year 1123 and 1137....