ANSELLO (that is, ANSELMO). - A Benedictine, called the Scholastic (Ansellus Scholasticus). With the authors of the Histoire littéraire de la France, it has been believed until today that he was a monk of Fleury, who lived in the 10th century; but A. Wilmart, relying on codex Vaticano Reg. lat. 73, calls him a monk of Saint-Germain d'Auxerre, and leaves uncertain the century in which he lived (10th or 11th).
His name is connected with the Visio cuiusdam monachi, better known as the Visio Anelli, very famous in the Middle Ages, yet remaining in manuscript until the last century, when Edélestand du Méril published it (1843) in Poésies latines populaires (I, 200-17), and Migne reproduced it (PL 151, 643-52). A critical edition is still desired.
The poem is set in the abbey of S. Remigio at Reims and describes the vision that a monk, while passing through there, had of the devil and hell. It consists of octosyllabic verses, with couplet rhymes and assonances, the penultimate syllable always short and without elision.
It is preceded by a prefatory letter addressed to an abbot Oddone, perhaps Oddone of Cluny (924-42), though he might also be Oddone of Saint-Germain d'Auxerre (1032-52). Remaining unpublished, the letter was critically published in 1933 by Wilmart, on the basis of three manuscripts.