EADMER. – Benedictine historian and theologian, called “the Cantor,” born between 1064 and 1066, died at Canterbury on 13 January 1124. Of English origin, he was educated in Scotland and became a monk at Canterbury. A disciple of St Anselm, in 1120 he was promoted to the archbishopric of St Andrews in Scotland, but resigned the following year before his consecration. He transmitted the narrative of civil and religious events in his own time concerning England, the memory of many figures who distinguished the Church and society of his age. In his theological works he reproduces the thought and sometimes the very language of St Anselm, which in part explains the mistaken attribution of some of his works to the latter; he distinguished himself by his defence of the privilege of the Immaculate Conception.
The short treatise *De Conceptione B. Mariae Virginis* (Fribourg in Br. 1904, ed. 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 Eadmer by Fr H. Thurston, is valuable as one of the first systematic attempts to defend this dogma.
Eadmer, anticipating Scotus, enunciated with identical words his strongest argument: *Potuit plane et voluit; si igitur voluit, fecit* (*PL* 159, 305), concluding with a description of the benefits thereby conferred on humanity. Other works: *De vita et conversatione Anselmi* (1033–1109), 2 vols. (*PL* 158, 49–118; *Acta S.S. Aprilis*, 11, Paris 1865, pp. 866–93; M. Rule, *Script. rerum bri. medi. aevi*, London 1884); Lives of St Wilfrid, St Bregwin, St Oswald, St Dunstan, St Odo, some of which are attributed to the monk Osbern (*PL* 159, 709–860); *De beatitudine coelesti* (*PL* 159, 587–601); *De excellentia Virginis Mariae* (*PL* 159, 557–80); *De Anselmi similitudinis* (*PL* 159, 605–708); *Ad Glastonienses monachos de corpore s. Dunstani* (*PL* 159, 709–860); *Ad monachos Virginimenses de electione episcopi* (*PL* 159, 607–808); *Nova opuscola de sanctorum veneratione et observatione* (A. Wilmart, in *Revue de science religieuse*, 15 [1935], pp. 184–219, 354–79). Among his works but not belonging to him: *De quattuor virtutibus quae fuerunt in B. Maria eiusque sublimitate* (*PL* 159, 579–86).