<b>Saint Anselm: faith and reason in the eleventh century</b> - DOI: 10.4025/actascihumansoc.v27i1.1164

Abstract

This article aims at analyzing Saint Anselm’s documents. He was a philosopher and theologian from the Eleventh Century, who brilliantly succeeded in expressing all the religious, political, social and economical movement of that period. Evaluating some of his positions, the necessity of an agreement between faith and reason (pillars of Christian philosophy), radical changes in society's structure and a continuous acceptance of man as a rational being were observed. According to several authors, the Eleventh Century occurred when Feudal way of living achieved its maturity, bringing, consequently, urgency to understand the relations between men in a different way, taking into account the feudal landlords’ growing power, as well as increasing in trade and towns. Saint Anselm’s classical reading offers us a broad and special view of that historic moment and the recognition of the Middle Ages as a period full of life, with singular characteristics and which, undoubtedly, promoted the start of Modern Age.