Today (28 May) the Church celebrates Lanfranc, Prior of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury and Scholar.

Lanfranc was born in Pavia, Italy, around the year 1005. At the age of thirty-five, he became a monk of Le Bec, in Normandy, where he founded the school which rose rapidly to renown throughout Europe.

In 1062 William of Normandy appointed him Abbot of Caen, then in 1070 Archbishop of Canterbury. Lanfranc was a great ecclesiastical statesman, overseeing administrative, judicial and ecclesial reforms with the same energy and rigour that the Conqueror displayed in his new kingdom.

Lanfranc did not forget his monastic formation: he wrote Constitutions for Christchurch, Canterbury, based on the customs of Le Bec, and appointed many Norman abbots to implement his vision in the English abbeys.

He died in 1089.