Anselm of Farfa

Anselm (Zelmo) was the Abbot of Farfa between 881 and 883, succeeding John I.^[1] His short abbacy is reasonably well-sourced compared to the string of five abbots following him, beginning with Teuto, who were extremely obscure figures even to Gregory of Catino, the abbey's historian of the eleventh century.^[2]

In 883 Farfa received a "privilege of greatest freedom" (praeceptum optimae libertatis) and a grant of various properties from the Emperor Charles the Fat. This, the last Carolingian grant to Farfa, is dated only to the year and does not name the abbot. It may have been Anselm, but more probably was Teuto.^[3] Charles' chief concern seems to have been the depredations of the Duke Guy II of Spoleto and other "evil men" (pravi homines) then in rebellion against him.^[4] He granted several similar (temporarily successful) privileges to other central Italian institutions in the summer of 883 during the height of the challenge to his authority.

Notes

1. Marino Marini, Serie cronologica degli abati del monastero di Farfa: Dissertazione epistolare (Rome: 1836), 13, records the opinion of Father Giancolombino Fatteschi that Anselm's abbacy began in 872, and also the belief that it began in 878, but he dismisses both dates as baseless.
2. Marios Costambeys, Power and Patronage in the Early Medieval Italy: Local Society, Italian Politics, and the Abbey of Farfa, c.700–900 (Cambridge: 2007), 162n.
3. Marini, 13.
4. Costambeys, 345.