EADMERO. — Benedictine historian and theologian, called “the Cantor,” born between 1060 and 1064, died at Canterbury on 13 January 1124. English by origin and educated in Scotland, he became a monk at Canterbury. A disciple of St. Anselm, in 1120 he was appointed archbishop of St. Andrews in Scotland, but resigned the following year before even being consecrated. He transmitted an account of the civil and religious events of his age concerning England, as well as the memory of many figures who distinguished the Church and the society of his time. In his theological works he reproduces the thought and at times the language of St. Anselm, which partly explains the erroneous attribution of some works by one to the other; he distinguished himself by his defense of the privilege of the Immaculate Conception.
The treatise De Conceptione B. Mariae Virginis (Fribourg in Br. 1904, edited by H. Thurston and Th. Slater; the most widely used edition is that of Migne: PL 159, 301–18; French trans. by B. Del Marmol, Maredsous 1923), erroneously attributed to St. Anselm and claimed for Eadmero by Fr. H. Thurston, is valuable as one of the first attempts at a systematic defense of this dogma.
E., anticipating Scotus, states in identical words his strongest argument: Potuit plane et voluit; si igitur voluit, fecit (PL 159, 305), concluding with a description of the beneficial effects this produced for humanity. Other works: De vita et conversatione Anselmi (1093–1109), in 2 vols. (PL 158, 49–118; Acta SS. Aprilis, II, Paris 1865, pp. 866–93; M. Rule, Script. rerum brit. medii aevi, London 1884); Vitae of St. Wilfrid, St. Bregwin, St. Oswald, St. Dunstan, and St. Odon, some of which are attributed to the monk Osbern (PL 159, 709–800); De beatitudine coelesti (PL 159, 587–606); De excellentia Virginis Mariae (PL 159, 557–80); De Anselmi similitudinibus (PL 159, 605–708); Ad Glastonienses monachos de corpore s. Dunstani (PL 159, 709–808); Ad monachos Vigornienses de electione episcopi (PL 159, 807–808); Nova opuscola de sanctorum veneratione et obsecratione (A. Wilmart, in Revue de science religieuse, 15 [1935], pp. 184–219, 354–79). The following appears among his works, but does not belong to him: De quattuor virtutibus quae fuerunt in B. Maria eiusque sublimitate (PL 159, 579–86).