ANSELLO (i.e., Anselm). – Benedictine, known as the Scholastic (Anselius Scholasticus). With the authors of the *Histoire littéraire de la France*, it has been believed up to the present that he was a monk of Fleury, who lived in the 10th century; but A. Wilmart, basing his argument on Vatican Codex Reg. lat. 73, identifies him as a monk of Saint-Germain d'Auxerre and leaves uncertain the century in which he lived (10th or 11th).
His name is associated with the *Visio cuiusdam monachi*, better known by the title of *Visio Anselli*, very famous in the Middle Ages, yet remaining in manuscript until the last century, when Edelestand 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 Saint Remigius of Reims and describes the vision that a passing monk had of the devil and of hell. It is composed of octosyllabic verses, with alternating rhyme and assonance, the penultimate syllable always short and without elision.
It is preceded by a prefatory letter addressed to an Abbot Odo, perhaps Odo of Cluny (924-42), but it could also be Odo of Saint-Germain d'Auxerre (1032-52). Remaining unpublished, the letter was critically published in 1933 by Wilmart, based on three manuscripts.