Note 673 — XVII. NORMAN ENGLAND.
Reading edition
See the confirmation of excommunication in which St. Anselm exhaled his fiery indignation at those who continued with “bestiali insania” to defy the authorities of the church. (Anselmi Lib. III. Epist. 112.)
Anselm was not entirely without assistance in his efforts. One of his monks, Reginald, of the great monastery of Canterbury, wrote a fearfully diffuse paraphrase, in Leonine verse, of the life of St. Malchus. It was an evil-minded generation, indeed, that could resist such a denunciation of marriage as that pronounced by the saint—
Plenum sorde thorum subeam plenumque dolorum? Plenus, ait, tenebris thalamus sordet muliebris. Displicet amplexus, horror mihi copula, sexus. Conjugium vile, vilescit sponsa, cubile. Nolo thorum talem, desidero spiritualem.
(Croke’s Rhyming Latin Verse, p. 67.)